Mickie
Somehow, I’d managed to stop crying and clean myself up a little. Margot had even talked me into ignoring all the laundry I had to do in favor of opening a bottle of wine and watching a rom-com.
I was right in the middle of opening said wine bottle when my cell phone rang.
It was Ashley. I knew she was working tonight, so I figured they needed me to fix whatever disaster had befallen them. Actually, I was surprised it had taken them this long to call.
“Please do not tell me Cynthia spit on another patient,” I said, laughing. “I’m not covering for her again.”
Silence.
If I hadn’t heard the distinct hum drum of the hospital in the background, I’d have thought she’d hung up.
“Ashley?”
“Mickie,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “You need to get down here.”
I was on alert. “Why? What’s going on?”
Her breathing picked up speed. “Two cops were brought in earlier.”
No.
It was the call. The one I’d dreaded for ten years.
No, it can’t be.
The hand that held my phone started shaking.
“One of them was Dawson,” she said. “He’s been shot, Mickie.”
I fell into a chair. My mind went blank, yet my brain went haywire all at the same time.
“H-how is he?” I managed.
As a fellow nurse, she knew I needed it straight, no sugar-coating.
“He was rushed into surgery. I haven’t heard how it’s going yet. Just…get down here now.” She hung up.
Oh, God. This couldn’t be happening.
Margot came into the kitchen, saw my expression, and rushed over. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
I swallowed three times before I could speak. “Dawson’s in the hospital. He’s been shot.”
Her eyes widened, though she immediately schooled her expression. “Can you drive yourself?”
When I didn’t answer, she snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“Hey, Mickie. Get it together, girl. You need to be strong right now, okay? I’ll stay here with the kids, but you need to let me know if you’re good to drive yourself or not.”
She was right. The kids would be scared, and they couldn’t see me losing it. They needed me, and so did my husband.
I snapped out of it, and looked her straight in the eye. “Yes, I can drive. I’m okay.”
She nodded once. “Good. Now, go. Call me when you know anything.”
I didn’t waste any more time and rushed out of the room. I almost let the tears flow when I kissed the kids, but I held back. Just as I was about to sprint down the porch steps, Margot pulled me in for a hug.
“He’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “He’s tough.”
I couldn’t remember getting to the hospital. All I remembered from the drive was my life with Dawson flashing before my eyes. The time we’d spent getting to know each other in the beginning. The years we’d survived acclimating ourselves to married life. The days we’d enjoyed with our children. All the time we’d had with each other’s families.
Making our own family.
Loving one another.
All of that could not be over. I wasn’t ready to be without that yet.
I wasn’t ready to be without him. I never would be.
I let my feet guide me through the hospital doors to ER. It was strange, really. I’d never found myself on this side of the nurses’ desk before, and I sure as hell didn’t like it. I especially hated to see all the sympathetic looks from my co-workers. It sort of angered me. I knew they were only wishing this wasn’t happening to me, being supportive and all that. But they acted as if they were already mourning him.
Dawson was not dying.
At least not today.
Ashley was there to meet me. Taking my hand, she led me down the hallway.
“He had some blood clotting during surgery, but he came out okay. He’ll be out for a while, and you know how it goes. The next twenty-four hours are critical.”
Meaning, he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
We stopped in front of a closed door. “Thank you for calling,” I murmured.
I couldn’t look away from that door.
“Of course,” she replied. “Let me know if you need anything at all. I’ll be back to check on you guys.”
She walked away and left me there. Once I’d built up enough courage, I pushed through the door…and came to a dead stop.
Oh, God.
Dawson was there, lying on the bed, with so many machines hooked up to him, including a breathing tube. I was used to seeing patients with a thousand wires coming out of them.
But this was my strong, invincible husband. He didn’t get hurt like this. The only injuries I’d ever seen him with were scrapes and bruises.
Now, he needed a machine just to help him breathe.
I approached the bed slowly, noticing how…human-like he looked. Stoically, I sat down in the chair beside the bed, and carefully took his hand in mine. I was relieved to feel the warmth of his skin.
Warmth signified life.
I kissed each finger, whispering my many apologies.
“You don’t get to go off and leave me here, do you hear me?” I whispered. “We made a deal. You still have many more years left that you have to put up with me.”
I let my silent tears fall. No one else was around to see them, so I didn’t feel bad about it. Besides, we’d agreed to always share our emotions with each other, and he didn’t get out of that just because he was unconscious.
He was the only one I’d ever be okay sharing my tears with, anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I cried, choking back sobs. “I’m so sorry. Please, don’t leave me.”
I couldn’t have the last words we would ever speak to each other be ones of anger. He deserved more than that.
“I love you so much.”
* * *
The next twenty-four hours were by far the worst of my life.
Margot and Sage helped take care of the kids while bringing me food and a change of clothes. Mason had shown up an hour after I’d first arrived. Parker had taken the first available flight out of Minneapolis, and had burst through the door at around three o’clock this morning.
Since then, there had been a steady stream of visitors from the station, including Lieutenant Allen. And as far as I knew, Mason and Parker were keeping their mother up-to-date on Dawson’s progress.
Not that there had been much to report.
Because he still hadn’t woken up.
He was in stable condition, and his vital signs had improved. He just hadn’t opened his eyes yet and until then, we couldn’t know what sort of situation we were dealing with.
Thankfully, Kyle was fine. He’d been shot in the leg, but the bullet had missed all of his major arteries. He was going to be on crutches for a while but ultimately, he was going to have a smooth recovery.
He’d even proposed to Christie from his hospital bed, which she had, understandably, assumed was a crazy reaction to all the pain meds.
Then he’d pulled the ring out of his wallet.
Turned out he was completely serious. He said he’d been waiting for just the right moment to ask her. And he’d chosen a hospital room, in the middle of the night, right after he’d had a hole put in his leg.
She’d still said yes.
Everyone had encouraged me to go home and get some rest, since, for all we knew, it could still be another twenty-four hours before Dawson woke up.
But there was no way I was leaving him.
Hell, I didn’t even want to go down to the cafeteria to get lunch. Or go to the bathroom. I wanted to be right here next to him when he finally opened his eyes. So, he would know there was nothing more important to me than being with him.
“Gabby says she has a boyfriend,” I told him, laughing to myself.
I’d been talking to him, telling him stories, sharing memories. Hoping he could hear every word, and that it might encourage him to wake up.
“Some kid in her kindergarten class. She says she likes his remote control car, and that it looks like one of Uncle Mason’s. Can you believe it? Our five-year-old daughter is already being reeled in by cute boys and cool cars.”
“Over my not-yet-dead body.”
I dropped the magazine I’d been pretending to read.
I lifted my eyes to Dawson to see that his were already open and watching me. They were focused, if not a little glassy from the pain medication, but I’d take it.
“Oh, my God,” I said on a gasp. “You’re awake.”
I dropped to his side and squeezed his hand, needing to just feel him.
“The last thing I remember is being in that dark house with my gun,” he said, his voice hoarse and raspy from the breathing tube. “The next thing I know, our daughter has a boyfriend. How long have I been in here?”
I wiped at my eyes when they became watery. “Only a day. But just so you know, I never want to go through another day like that again.”
He shifted his body in the bed—only slightly, but you could tell it was a struggle for him—and he winced.
“Me neither. That bastard Stein didn’t operate on me, did he?”
A short laugh burst out of me. “No. He’s sort of out of commission. You broke his nose yesterday, remember?”
A pleased expression transformed his face. “Oh, yeah.” His eyes shot to mine. “Kyle?”
I nodded, smiling. “He’s fine. He even proposed to Christie from his hospital bed.”
He scoffed. “That jackass always has to show me up. But it’s about damn time.”
His shoulders relaxed, his eyes remaining on me. My smile faded as I thought about how close I’d come to losing him.
“Please don’t scare me like that again,” I whispered.
His lips twitched. “I’ll try my best not to.”
I shook my head, needing him to understand. “I almost lost you.”
His expression softened, and he tightened his grip on my hand.
“I’m here now, though. I told you I would never leave you.”
That statement was like a blow to the chest as I recalled our last conversation.
“I was so stupid for not telling you about the job in Jersey. I was never going to take it, really. I was just so confused and scared after I made you leave.” I lowered my head in shame. “I was afraid that I had just destroyed everything.”
“I know.”
I raised my head in surprise. He knew?
“I know you did what you did for us. And you didn’t destroy anything. In fact, you were the one who came up with a solution, and it worked. You fixed us, Mick.”
I leaned forward and kissed his hand. “I wasn’t the one who took us salsa dancing, and demanded a Cinderella night, and locked us away on a boat all weekend. That was all you. And you couldn’t have made me any happier.”
A grin began to form. “Really?”
I smiled. “Are you kidding? I mean, you even broke out the big guns with your cop uniform at the bar. If that’s not making an effort, I don’t know what is.”
He chuckled. “If I have to suffer through a night where my wife treats me like a piece of meat, so be it.”
As our laughter died, my expression turned grave again.
“I don’t want us to go through something like this again,” I said. “Any of it. Life’s too short, and I want another ten years with you. And another ten years after that, and another after that. If these last two months have taught me anything, it’s that life is miserable without having you in it. And I can’t go on living like that anymore. I refuse to.”
He closed his eyes, as if relieved to hear that, and opened them again.
“When I was younger, living with my mom and Sal, trying to take care of Mason and Parker while dealing with Sal’s beatings…I thought that was the worst life could ever get. As far as I was concerned, it was the closest thing to Hell.”
My lower lip quivered.
He slowly shook his head. “But none of that even compares to how I’ve felt living without you these past two months. I would have taken Sal’s beatings over that kind of torture any day.”
I stood up and slid into bed with him, careful not to bump the bandage covering most of his lower abdomen. As tough as he liked to act, I was sure he was in considerable pain.
“That will never happen again,” I told him. “For the rest of our lives, we’re never going to be apart.”
He hummed in agreement. “It’s you and me, Mick.” He put his hand on my shoulder blade, right over my tattoo. “Always and forever.”
I gently placed my hand over the tattoo on his chest. “Always and forever.”
We sealed the promise with a kiss so pure I felt it in the deepest parts of my soul.
I rested my forehead against his. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered against my lips. “So damn much. I’ve always loved you. And I always will love you. Always, Mickie.”