Surrender: A Bitter Creek Novel

by Joan Johnston

  He might never forgive Leah for those few moments of hope he’d experienced when she’d told him Brian was alive, because now he would need to go through that awful moment of acceptance all over again. It was plain that Brian had traveled far more than halfway across death’s doorstep.

  “Brian needs a medivac,” Leah said, one arm around Taylor and the other on Brian’s shoulder. “Now!”

  Aiden realized he’d been sitting doing nothing while Brian edged slowly, but surely, away from the world of the living. He grabbed his satellite phone and called for a helicopter, explaining what he needed.

  “They can’t get a basket in here,” Leah pointed out. “The forest is too dense.”

  “I’ve got Primacord. I’ll make a space big enough.” He looked for the largest opening he could find in the trees, then set about wrapping Primacord around tree trunks, setting off explosions to neatly take down everything necessary to make a space sufficient for a medivac helicopter to lower a basket and get it back out.

  He was grateful for the hard work. Even so, it took a lifetime—Brian’s ebbing lifetime—for the helicopter to appear. Aiden had plenty of time to take another good look at Taylor. She was suffering from more than malnutrition. Her vivacious spirit seemed to have eked out of her, like air out of a balloon. He wondered how much longer she would have lasted, if she and Brian hadn’t been found. He had no doubt that her tireless care of Brian was the reason his brother had lasted as long as he had.

  He crossed to her and said, “Thank you.”

  She looked up at him with dull, despairing eyes in a skeletal face. “For what?”

  “For keeping Brian alive.”

  He’d been surprised by her lack of tears in her emotional reunion with Leah, who’d been blubbering like a baby, but his words must have reminded her that Brian was hanging on to life by a thread, because her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” she whispered in a voice that sent chills down his spine. “There was nothing else I could do. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Leah shot him a warning look and took her sister in her arms, holding her tight, as though to keep her from slipping away.

  He heard the flackita, flackita, flackita that announced the helicopter had arrived.

  “Help is here,” Leah crooned to her sister. “Your work is done, Taylor. You can rest now.”

  Aiden watched Taylor’s eyes slide closed and her chin drop to her chest.

  “I’m so tired,” she said.

  Her body sagged and then went completely limp.

  Leah met his gaze, her arms wrapped tightly around her unconscious sister, while silent tears streamed down her face.

  Aiden couldn’t look any longer at the desperate tableau. He stepped into the clearing he’d made and popped colored smoke to show their exact location.

  He and Leah had done what they’d set out to do. They’d found Brian and Taylor. Now all they had to do was keep them both alive until they reached the hospital in Jackson.

  TAYLOR THOUGHT SHE was dreaming when she woke up and found herself in a hospital bed covered by pristine white sheets. She sat up slowly and ran her hands over the soft, worn cotton, to be sure she wasn’t dreaming, worried that the hospital room would suddenly disappear, and she would find herself back in the forest. But the sheets stayed in place, the monitor to which she was attached kept on beeping, and the IV in her forearm, leading to a bag of clear liquid on a stand, was the real deal.

  She sank weakly back onto the pillow, her eyes filling with tears of relief. “We made it,” she whispered.

  Then it dawned on her that Brian might not have made it. He’d been all but dead when Leah and Aiden had shown up. Taylor bolted upright and had to wait a moment for a wave of dizziness to pass. She looked for a phone, but there wasn’t one in the room. She searched for some kind of call button for the nurse, but she couldn’t find that either.

  “Where the hell is everybody?” she said, surprised at how hoarse she sounded and how sore her throat was. Then she remembered how she’d screamed for help, for someone to come and rescue them, when it seemed Brian was going to die and leave her alone.

  She wondered how long she’d been in the hospital. The sun was coming up, but was it the next day? Or the day after that? How long had she been here? Brian could have died while she’d been sleeping! She needed to know what had happened to him.

  Taylor frowned at the blue-patterned hospital gown she was wearing, then checked the back and discovered that it did, indeed, leave her ass hanging out. What had happened to her jeans and shirt? Not that she wanted to wear that outfit again in this lifetime, but she needed something better than an open-backed cotton gown if she was going to be running through the halls looking for Brian.

  She snatched the flat white plastic contacts from her chest, and the machine stopped beeping. Then she removed the tape holding the IV needle in place and carefully slid the needle out. Once she was free, she pulled off the top sheet and wrapped it around herself like a toga. She didn’t see slippers anywhere, so she left the room barefoot.

  The fluorescent fixtures in the hall seemed brighter than the creeping sunlight in her room, and she hesitated in the doorway, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

  A nurse was hurrying in her direction. “What are you doing out of bed? You can’t just get up and walk around. What have you done with your IV?”

  Instead of answering questions, Taylor said, “Where’s Brian Flynn? I need to see him.”

  “I can’t give you any information about another patient,” the nurse said.

  “Just tell me if he’s alive.”

  “I can’t comment on the condition of a patient.”

  Taylor had no patience with bullshit. “Either tell me where to go or get out of my way.”

  “I can’t—”

  Taylor brushed past the nurse and headed for the intensive care unit. That’s where Brian would be if he was alive. She knew where the ICU was because King had stayed there briefly when he’d had a heart arrhythmia.

  “I’m contacting your sister,” the nurse called after her. “She’s not going to be happy about this.”

  Taylor ignored her, hurrying down the hall toward the ICU, which was located in the middle of the one-story hospital near the emergency room. Leah would understand that she had to see Brian, and if she didn’t, that was too damn bad.

  The halls were strangely empty. Taylor realized she must have woken during a time when nurses were changing shifts, before breakfast was being served, or doctors were likely to be checking on patients. She ran past closed doors and slowed down at open doors to see if Brian might be in one of the beds.

  She wondered where her sisters were. She would have expected to find not just Leah, but Vick and Eve conked out in chairs at her bedside. It was odd that not one of them had been in the room. Which suggested she’d been “out” more than twenty-four hours, enough time that they’d begun watching over her in shifts, and whoever was supposed to be there had gone to get coffee or to walk around outside.

  She wondered if her father had visited and figured he’d probably been there for appearance’s sake. She wondered what she would have said if she’d found King at her bedside. Something snotty, probably, about how he paid attention to her only when she was in trouble, and now that she was better he could take himself off to wherever he was spending his time these days.

  She was nearing the ICU when she paused abruptly and stepped back into an empty room, where she couldn’t be seen. She watched as Leah and Aiden leaned close, their eyes focused on each other as they spoke. For an instant, she thought they might kiss, but Leah stepped back abruptly and walked in the opposite direction.

  She wondered if Leah had forgiven Aiden for making the bet with Brian. It was hard to imagine Leah falling in love with one of the Flynns. She wondered what would happe
n between her sister and Brian’s brother, now that the necessity of working together was past.

  Taylor stepped out from her hiding place and almost called out to Leah, but thought better of it. Taylor figured she had a better chance of getting past Aiden alone, than getting past both Aiden and her sister.

  Aiden had thanked her for saving Brian’s life. Aiden owed her a chance to see how Brian was faring, assuming Brian was in the room Aiden seemed to be guarding. Surely he was. Surely Brian had survived. But had he lost his leg?

  Taylor waited for Aiden to go back inside, then hurried down the hall. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. And found herself facing every single one of “those awful Flynn boys.”

  “What are you doing in here?” Connor demanded.

  Devon frowned. “How did you get loose? Last I heard, you were unconscious, attached to a heart monitor, and had a needle in your arm.”

  Taylor lifted her chin defiantly. She wasn’t going to be kicked out. She wasn’t going to go away. She wasn’t going to be denied. “I came to see Brian.”

  “You should be in bed.” Aiden’s voice was kinder, but the message was the same.

  You don’t belong here.

  She leaned around Aiden to peek at Brian. He looked awful. Thin, pale, and unshaven. A tent covered his right leg, making it impossible to tell whether it had been amputated. His hovering brothers looked to her like vultures hanging around a dying carcass.

  “You should all get out of here and let him rest,” she said as she stepped to the foot of Brian’s bed.

  “Who the hell—” Connor began.

  “Back up and leave her alone,” Aiden said.

  Taylor felt her nose burning and tears sting her eyes as she gripped the foot rail. Brian had a tube down his throat and a needle in his arm and beeping sounds were coming from a nearby machine that looked like the one that had been attached to her.

  He’s alive. But is he going to stay that way?

  Her stomach churned and emotion clogged her throat as she stared at the tent covering his leg. She shifted her gaze to Aiden and croaked, “Did they cut it off?”

  He shook his head.

  Devon took a step toward her and said, “You should leave.”

  Aiden whirled on him and snapped, “Shut the hell up! If not for her, we’d be burying Brian instead of standing vigil over him.”

  “She’s the reason Brian’s in this condition in the first place,” Connor shot back. “She was flying too low.”

  “He’s right, Aiden,” Devon chimed in. “They’re saying the plane went down because of pilot error. That makes this whole situation her fault.”

  Taylor felt like she’d been stabbed with a knife to the heart. All her fault. Were they right? Had she done this to Brian? She met Aiden’s tortured gaze and asked, “Is he dying?”

  “Who the hell knows? They’ve got him stuffed with antibiotics, but it’s anybody’s guess whether they’re going to work.”

  “Why is that tent over his leg?”

  “They cut out a big chunk of his calf, trying to save the leg. It might still have to come off, if they can’t get the infection under control.”

  She crossed past Connor and Devon, daring them to try and stop her, so she could stand at the head of the bed. She brushed a lock of hair from Brian’s forehead, then placed her palm against his cheek and felt the raging fever that might yet kill him. She bent down to whisper in his ear.

  “Fight, Brian. Live. We aren’t done yet. Not by a long shot.”

  Then she stood up and looked from one brother to the next.

  “I owe your brother my life. He saved us both. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.” Everything suddenly caught up to her. Her whole body began to tremble, and she was afraid her knees were going to collapse.

  “Are you all right?” Aiden asked.

  Taylor looked at him, helpless either to move or to speak.

  Aiden scooped her into his arms and said, “Open the door, Connor.”

  “Where are you going with her?”

  “Back to her room, of course.”

  “Make sure she stays there,” she heard someone mutter.

  Her eyes sank closed, and her body relaxed like a rag doll in Aiden’s arms. She was so exhausted. She wanted to go to sleep and have Brian be well again when she woke up. But that sort of magic only happened in fairy tales. She needed to find the strength to deal with what was really happening.

  Brian’s brothers probably thought they’d seen the last of her. Well, let them think what they wanted. She would be back. Tomorrow and the next day and the next, until Brian Flynn was fighting fires again.

  She wanted a chance for a life together. The first step toward that goal was getting Brian back on his feet. With any luck, both feet. If that wasn’t to be, they’d deal with it together.

  “Those awful Flynn boys” could wish her to Hades, if they wanted. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  “YOU NEED TO stop these visits to the hospital,” Leah said, grabbing Taylor’s arm to keep her from heading out the kitchen door.

  “Brian needs me.”

  “You need to take care of yourself. You wake up in the middle of the night whimpering and wander the halls until dawn. You aren’t eating.”

  “I have to go, Leah.”

  “Brian Flynn has been in a coma for the past ten days. He won’t even know you’re there.”

  “I’ll know.”

  “I realize you’ve been through a lot together—”

  Taylor gave her sister a look that shut her up. But only for a moment.

  “Whatever feelings you might have had for each other were a result of the situation you were in,” Leah persisted. “When Brian wakes up—if he wakes up—he’s going to be concentrating on getting his life back together. He isn’t going to be thinking about you.”

  Taylor’s chin lifted, but she felt a spurt of fear that her sister was right. “You weren’t there, Leah. You don’t know what it was like. You don’t know anything.”

  “I know enough to warn you to protect your heart,” she said in a voice so gentle it made Taylor’s throat ache. “Whatever promises Brian made will be forgotten, I promise you. The Flynns, one and all, have grown up as cold and callous and uncaring as the bastard who raised them.”

  “You’re wrong about Brian, Leah.”

  Leah’s eyes looked both wounded and worried. “I know what I’m talking about.”

  “You weren’t there,” Taylor repeated.

  “Have you spoken to Vick about this?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “She didn’t change my mind.” Taylor had gotten pretty much the same speech from her twin that she was getting from Leah, but she refused to be swayed. She’d allowed Vick to talk her into walking away from Brian when she was a teenager. She wasn’t going to let it happen again.

  “We spoke,” Vick said, entering the kitchen still dressed in her cotton nightgown, yawning and ruffling her blond curls. “Argued half the night and into the wee hours this morning. I couldn’t make her see reason, either.”

  “The Flynns can’t all be as bad as you say,” Taylor argued. “Look at Eve. She seems happy married to Connor.”

  “They haven’t been together long enough for us to know whether their marriage is going to survive,” Leah said.

  “Well, so far, it’s working,” Taylor replied, undeterred.

  “What do the Flynns say when you show up at Brian’s room?” Leah asked.

  “Nothing.” Aiden had made it clear to his brothers that she was welcome at Brian’s bedside whenever she chose to come. So far, she hadn’t run into Angus, but she was even willing to beard the lion, if necessary.

  She spent her days sitting in a plastic chair beside Brian’s bed, talking to him and holding his
hand. His brothers showed up in shifts, but because they had ranch animals—and in Connor’s case family—that had to be fed and cared for, they weren’t able to stay for long. She left the room while they were visiting Brian and waited in the cafeteria.

  “I have to be there, Leah,” she said. “When he wakes up, I mean. Brian’s going to need—”

  “His family,” Vick interrupted. “Not one of King’s Brats. Wake up and smell the coffee, Taylor. The Flynns—father and sons—want nothing to do with us. If you’re well enough to hang out at the hospital making a nuisance of yourself, you’re well enough to go back to work—” Vick cut herself off and looked abashed.

  Taylor huffed out a disgusted breath. “Dropping smoke jumpers? Flying over forest fires? I don’t think the National Transportation Safety Board is going to let me do that until I’ve explained what I did to flame out both engines of my Twin Otter. I’ll be lucky if they don’t take away my pilot’s license.”

  “You could…” Vick’s voice trailed away.

  Taylor couldn’t work as a corporate pilot, either, until she’d been cleared by the NTSB. “Besides, I’m not ready to fly again. I need some time to cope with…everything.”

  Taylor wasn’t sure she had the nerve to fly smoke jumpers again. She knew having both engines flame out had to be a one in a million incident, but she didn’t think she’d ever again be so blithe about the dangers of dropping smoke jumpers on a hellish forest fire.

  “Seems to me you’ve got enough to handle, without adding Brian’s problems to your own,” Leah said. “From what Aiden told me—”

  “You’ve been talking to Aiden?” Taylor said. “What does he say? What’s Brian’s prognosis? The doctor won’t tell me anything.” She’d been unwilling to ask Brian’s brothers for information they didn’t freely offer.

  They hadn’t offered anything, which lent credence to Vick’s suggestion that they’d just as soon she stayed away.

  “Never mind what Aiden said,” Vick interjected. “I want to know why you’ve been spending time with the enemy, Leah. I’ve never in my life heard you say a good thing about a Flynn, and suddenly you’re best friends with Aiden?”