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 happen 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.