In the end, her altruistic decision had been wasted. Fate had stepped in and had the last laugh at their expense before he could sign the papers dissolving their marriage. Before he’d created the family he’d always wanted.
Since then, she’d told herself on a daily basis to stop beating herself over everything from procrastinating to her bad timing. After all, divorced or widowed, she was still alone.
Alone or not, though, it pained her to imagine what final thoughts had run through Gabe’s head. No doubt his last one of her had involved the unpleasant scene when she’d asked for a divorce. Some would say she was being too hard on herself. Others would say she was worrying over nothing. After all, if she wanted to completely sever their matrimonial ties, why did she care what his last thoughts of her had been?
In one corner of her heart, she’d wanted Gabe to realize their marriage needed as much attention as he gave his family’s charitable foundation, but if he’d entertained any regrets during his final moments, she’d never know. Chances were, she repeated to herself for the millionth time, he hadn’t thought of her at all…
Jane straightened, her gaze riveted in the distance. “Looks like they’re about two blocks away.” She glanced at her watch. “Right on time, too.”
Leah slowly got to her feet then brushed the seat of her scrub pants. “I wish we knew what we were getting,” she fretted.
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
A black Lexus squealed to an abrupt stop in the aisle of the parking lot. Apparently the driver didn’t care about the traffic snarl he’d created.
“Security is going to eat him alive,” Leah commented.
“Maybe you should tell him.”
The ambulance pulled in and began backing up to the dock, its warning beeps intermingling with the other city noises. “He’ll have to take his chances,” Leah said. “We have things to do and people to see.”
As the ambulance inched backwards, Leah heard someone call her name. A familiar figure, Sheldon Redfern had jumped out of the Lexus and was running toward her.
“Leah,” he panted. “Wait!”
“Sheldon, what are you doing here?” she asked, amazed to see him.
“I have to tell you—”
The ambulance braked. “Save it for later,” she ordered. “I’m busy right now.”
“This can’t wait.”
He grabbed her arm at the same time she saw Jane twisting the handle to open the back door. “Sheldon,” she protested. “I have work to do.”
“Leah,” he urged. “It’s about Gabe and the search team we sent.”
Instinctively, her heart sank. Sheldon’s eagerness to contact her only meant one thing.
“They finally located his remains,” she said dully, feeling her chest tighten and a painful knot clog her throat as her eyes dimmed with sudden tears. For all the problems they’d had, she hadn’t wanted anything so drastic and so final to happen to him. Yes, a divorce was like a death—the death of a marriage—but part of her consolation had been that they each would carry on and eventually find the happiness they couldn’t find with each other.
Unfortunately, Sheldon’s announcement had irrevocably destroyed that thin hope. Why had he felt compelled to deliver the news now, at this very moment, with patients breathing down her neck, when she wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with the finality of the situation?
“No,” Sheldon corrected in her ear.
“No?” She stared at him in surprise.
“What he’s trying to say unsuccessfully is that they found us.” Sheldon’s voice suddenly sounded closer…and deeper…and more like…Gabe’s.
And it was coming from inside the ambulance.
She focused in that direction, ignoring the paramedic to glance at the human cargo—two men and a woman. They looked tired and dirty in clothing that was tattered and torn, but broad smiles shone on their faces. An uncanny sense of familiarity struck her.
In spite of their gaunt and disreputable appearance, she knew all three. Yet her brain couldn’t reconcile what she was seeing with what she’d been told.
She homed in on the man who’d spoken. He was just as dirty as the other two and equally as disheveled. His right pants leg had been cut open at some point but in spite of being tied closed with strips of gauze, she glimpsed a white bandage circling his shin. A splint encased his left forearm and another bandage was visible above the open neck of his torn shirt. But there was no denying that this man was Gabe.
“I tried calling you all morning,” Sheldon babbled in the background as the identities of Gabe’s colleagues— Jack Kasold and Theresa Hernandez—registered before they stepped onto the concrete. “You never answered my messages.”
The pink scraps of paper tucked in her tunic pocket suddenly weighed like the proverbial ton of bricks. She’d ignored them when she’d seen who’d phoned because she’d assumed he simply wanted to hash out more details for the foundation’s upcoming charity ball. Apparently, she’d been wrong.
“I was going to call you during my break,” she said numbly as she looked past all the people to study her husband once again.
Tape bisected his forehead, his beard was scruffy, his hair shaggy, and lines of apparent pain bracketed his full mouth, but his midnight-black eyes were so familiar.
Could it be true? Really true? Her heart skipped a beat as she feared she might be hallucinating and hoped she was not.
“Gabe?” she finally asked, aware of how thin and reedy her voice sounded.
He stepped out of the ambulance, balancing himself on one crutch. His reassuring smile was one she’d seen before—the same one that belonged to the man she’d married when their future had been bright and it had seemed as if nothing could stop them from living their dreams.
“Hi, honey. I’m home.”
CHAPTER TWO
UNCERTAIN of the reception he’d receive when he finally saw Leah again, Gabriel’s tension had escalated with each mile closer to his destination. Considering how Sheldon hadn’t been able to reach her all morning, Gabe had expected her to be surprised and shocked by his astonishing return and she didn’t disappoint him.
“Gabe?” she whispered in that soft voice he remembered so vividly. “Is it really you?”
He met her gaze and offered a rueful smile. “A little the worse for wear but, yes, it is.”
“Oh, my.” She covered her mouth with both hands. Suddenly, she turned pale and a dazed look came to her eyes.
She was going to faint. Cursing because he wasn’t in a position to catch her himself, he roared, “Sheldon!”
Fortunately, his second-in-command was beside her and grabbed her arm. At the same time the paramedic did the same. For an instant she sagged, then straightened and shrugged off the two men’s hold.
“I’m okay,” she insisted, losing a bit of her deer-caught-in-the-headlights look.
“Are you sure?” The paramedic didn’t sound convinced as he eyed her closely.
“I’m fine. Really.”
Of course she was, Gabe thought wryly. Leah thrived on her ability to handle anything and everything by herself, without help from anyone. In fact, at times he’d felt rather superfluous in their marriage, but he intended to change all that.
“Truly,” she insisted, tentatively reaching toward him.
Eager to touch her and prove just how wrong the reports of his death had been, as well as to reassure himself that he was truly home, Gabe grabbed her hand.
Her skin was soft and warm and soothingly familiar. Oh, how he’d missed her!
Before he could say a word, before he could do anything but entwine his fingers with hers, she flung herself against him and buried her face in his shoulder.
His crutch clattered to the concrete and his ribs protested, but having her in his arms where she belonged was worth the pain. When his plane had landed and Leah hadn’t been standing with Jack’s and Theresa’s elated families on the tarmac, he’d been so afraid…but this was the response he’d
dreamed of and hoped for every night they’d been lost in the jungle.
The coldness of despair, the survivor’s guilt, and the soul-racking regret that he’d labored under for weeks now began to diminish until he slowly felt warm from the inside out.
His wife’s fresh, clean scent filled his nostrils and reminded him of how desperately he needed soap and water. If he’d been thinking properly, he might have asked Sheldon to detour to his corporate offices where he could have made use of the executive washroom, but he’d been too eager to see Leah to consider it. Quite frankly, though, with his stiff shoulder and the slow-healing gash on his leg, he wasn’t sure he could manage the feat on his own, anyway.
He gripped her with his good arm, feeling her slight frame shake beneath his hand. As her tears soaked his shirt, his throat tightened and his eyes burned with more emotion than he could begin to describe.
“Oh, honey. Don’t cry,” he said hoarsely, relieved by her reception and grateful the paramedics and ER staff were giving them a few minutes before they whisked him away.
“I’m not,” she sniffed, swiping at the moisture on her cheeks as she stared at him. “Oh, Gabe. I can’t believe it.”
As he gazed at her, one thought ran through his mind. She was beautiful—more beautiful than the picture he’d slipped out of his wallet and stuck in his shirt pocket shortly after they’d crashed. The photo was now dog-eared and a little dirty, but her image had given him the incentive to keep going when he’d sworn he couldn’t hobble another step.
“I can’t quite believe it, either,” he said ruefully. As far as he was concerned, this was a dream come true. A bona fide miracle.
More importantly, it was a miracle he wasn’t going to let slip through his fingers.
“What happened?” she asked.
“It’s a long story.” Rather than dwell on that fateful day and the events leading up to it, he drank in everything about her, from her acorn-colored hair and eyes that reminded him of the Grand Canyon’s various shades of brown to her retroussé nose and sensual mouth. She’d lost weight, too, if his hands hadn’t deceived him.
The paramedic stepped close to interrupt. “I don’t mean to cut short your reunion, Dr. Montgomery, but let’s get you inside before you fall.”
Whether she suddenly realized how heavily he was leaning against her or the paramedic’s statement had reminded her of his injuries, his prim and proper wife—and she still was his wife, even if they’d lived apart for the last twelve months—unwrapped herself from him and took his good arm. Although he missed her embrace, he was glad she hadn’t completely turned him loose. Granted, she’d fallen back into nurse mode, but he wanted to believe she needed the contact as much as he did to reassure herself that he was, indeed, alive and well.
Maybe not “well”, he corrected as he lowered himself into a hastily provided wheelchair, but his aches and pains now seemed inconsequential. For the past month he’d fought his fears of failure—fears that the feelings she’d once had for him were gone—but he took heart that she hadn’t rejected him. In the nightmares that had often startled him awake, he’d dreamt she’d take one look at him and walk away. Thankfully, none of those painfully vivid dreams had come true.
They still had issues to resolve but he was cautiously optimistic about success. If he played his cards right—and he intended to because he’d had a month to plan a strategy—there wouldn’t be any more talk of a divorce. Fate had given him a second chance to correct his mistakes and undo the past. He would not fail.
Leah wanted to ask a hundred questions, but Gabe’s slumped shoulders as she walked beside his wheelchair told her how exhausted he was. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him so drained, even during his residency when forty-eight-hour shifts had been the norm. There would be plenty of time to hear his story after his medical needs were addressed—starting with how he’d survived a supposedly fatal accident.
It wasn’t until he’d gingerly moved from his wheelchair to the bed with her help and that of a paramedic that she realized the awkwardness of the situation. As a nurse she belonged in the room, but as his estranged wife she certainly didn’t. Unfortunately, by the time she’d come to that conclusion, the other nurses had already disappeared into their respective patients’ rooms, leaving her no choice but to continue. Asking for a reassignment now would only draw unwanted and unnecessary attention. As soon as word leaked of Gabe’s return, speculation would run rampant anyway.
In spite of resigning herself to her temporary fate, her awkwardness grew exponentially as Jeff Warren took that moment to walk into the room. The normally implacable blond physician stopped abruptly in his tracks, as if he hadn’t realized the identity of his patient until now. Immediately, he glanced back at Leah and she shrugged helplessly, realizing that this moment was as uncomfortable for him as it was for her. The only difference was Jeff seemed to recover more quickly from his surprise than she had.
“Gabe,” he said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks. It’s great to be home.”
“I’ll do my best to get you there,” Jeff promised. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve done to yourself, shall we?”
Leah had planned to act as usual, giving Gabe the same objective care she’d give any other patient. However, that was easier said than done. The minute he shrugged off his tattered shirt, she saw the physical evidence of what he’d endured. His bones stood out in stark relief to the scabbed-over scrapes and large, brilliantly colored patches of purple, yellow and green that dotted his skin, while other areas were rubbed raw.
“Oh, Gabe,” she breathed.
“It looks worse than it is,” he assured her.
Objectively speaking, he was probably right, but through the eyes of someone who’d once carefully and lovingly mapped every inch of his six-foot body, she wasn’t as certain. It became far too easy to imagine how he’d earned each scrape and each bruise and then marvel at how he’d endured the trauma and still returned home. His obvious weight loss made her wonder what he’d eaten, if anything, which was another facet of his ordeal she hadn’t considered until now.
Part of her wanted to hug him again, to erase those physical hurts with a soft and gentle touch. The other part of her wanted to rail at him, ask if his injuries had been worth those extra duties he’d assumed and the additional trips he’d taken on behalf of his family’s charitable organization.
More importantly, though, she wanted to lock herself in the restroom so she could cry because, however illogical it seemed, she somehow felt responsible—not for the crash itself, or even for this particularly fateful international jaunt, but for sending him into the ever-eager arms of the Montgomery Medical Foundation. Had she not rejected his comfort after their adoption had fallen through, he wouldn’t have found his purpose in his work. With the schedule he’d set for himself, both before their separation and after, it was almost amazing that disaster hadn’t struck before now.
Regardless of where she laid blame or how she took responsibility, what mattered most for now was the state of Gabe’s health, not rehashing the mistakes or hurts of the past.
“Leah?”
Hearing her name, she pulled her thoughts together and met Jeff’s questioning gaze. He was obviously reading more into her inattentiveness than she wanted.
“Maybe you should take a break,” he suggested softly.
She was tempted to take his advice, but she’d never deserted a patient before and she wouldn’t start now. She shook her head and squared her shoulders. “I’m fine. Really.”
Jeff simply shrugged, then listened to Gabe’s chest sounds as he spoke. “You still have some nasty injuries. What did you do? Hit every tree in the jungle?”
“It seemed like it,” Gabe mentioned ruefully. “I picked up about half of my bruises and bumps during the crash. Splitting my leg open came later.”
“What happened?”
“In regard to my leg or the crash itself?”
“Both.”
Curious about the details surrounding his experience, Leah listened closely.
“Minutes before we crashed, there was a thump, then an engine sputtered, and Ramon yelled something about birds. The next thing I knew, we were going down.” He paused. “When it was all over, I had a dislocated shoulder and a bad wrist. Jack relocated the bone and immobilized my arm with the supplies out of our first-aid kit. Then we went to find help.”
Leah tried not to imagine the pain he must have endured while Jack had worked on his shoulder without any anesthetic. As an internist, Jack’s basic orthopedic skills were no doubt rusty, but he would have had to proceed because the potential complications like a lack of blood supply and damaged nerves were too serious to ignore. As she surreptitiously studied Gabe’s fingers, the pink skin color and lack of swelling were reassuring signs of his success.
“Needless to say, it took us a while to find another human being,” he added wryly, “although, technically, a few locals found us when they stumbled across our path. We stayed in their village overnight but before they took us to the next town, the search team had tracked us there. And here we are.”
“You’re lucky they found you at all,” Leah interjected. “We were told you were dead.” Thank goodness Sheldon had persisted with cutting through the red tape to send in their own team. If they’d accepted the official verdict and let matters lie…the idea of Gabe and his colleagues still wandering through the jungle sent a chill down her spine.
“I’m not surprised the authorities assumed the worst,” Gabe said, his voice pained. “We’d stopped inches away from a ravine and thought we were on safe ground. Not long afterwards, the ground gave way and the plane slid over the edge. On its way down, the fuel tanks blew.”
Six-Week Marriage Miracle Page 2
