Chapter Twenty
Alyssa raced down the hallway of the emergency room like the hounds of hell were chasing her. Her unzipped jacket flapped back and forth as her feet pounded the tile floor.
“Two, four…” she mumbled as she streaked past the triage rooms. The moment the bored-looking receptionist informed her Derek was in room eight, Alyssa took off like she’d fired a starting gun in a race, leaving Brett and Roxie in the dust.
She didn’t care. They’d catch up eventually. Her single-minded focus on seeing Derek alive was the only thing that mattered.
“Eight!” she cried as she wrenched the curtain open. Each triage room was separated by actual walls, but only a curtain closed the space off from the hallway.
And there he was. Sitting on a plint, shirt off, pale with dark circles under his eyes, and a bulky bandage over his left deltoid.
“Derek,” she half spoke, half sobbed.
“Hey, baby.” A wry grin lifted his lips and gave his tired face a teasing expression.
She scanned him, taking in every inch, looking for more injuries or signs something greater was wrong. All she saw aside from the shoulder injury was rounded muscles, a broad chest, and yards of colorful ink. Her eyes might have lingered for a second or two too long before returning to his face. It was easy to get lost in all that male perfection.
Especially when it was all for her and only her to enjoy. At least it had been all hers. The trauma of the night eclipsed all her previous worries and relationship concerns. Now that she could see for herself that Derek was alive and mostly unharmed, those anxieties began to come back.
Despite how glad she was to be there, their marriage was still like an overfilled balloon. For the past couple days, it felt as though at any second the entire thing would explode.
“Ahh, you must be Mrs. Jackson,” a woman said from the corner of the room, making Alyssa jump. She’d been so zeroed on Derek, she hadn’t noticed the short, curvy nurse in bright teal scrubs scanning medication packets with a handheld scanner attached to the wall computer.
“Um, yes, Alyssa,” she replied. “How is he?”
“I’m fine,” Derek said in the typical macho way he had. Once, a few years ago, he’d had a cough that was “fine” and remained fine for weeks on end while he got sicker and sicker, until Alyssa finally forced him to see his physician. Turned out to be a severe case of pneumonia, which landed him right in this very hospital for three days.
Stubborn alpha man.
“I didn’t ask you, Der, I asked your nurse.”
The nurse chuckled and shifted her long red braid, so it hung over her right shoulder. “I’m Nancy and I’ve been Derek’s nurse since he was brought in here. For the most part he’s right, he’s fine, or at least he will be.”
Derek smirked at him and she resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at the infuriating man.
“The bullet wound is just a deep graze that looks much more impressive than it really is. He didn’t even loose much blood. We cleaned it and stitched him up. That arm will be sore for a few days and he’ll probably have a scar, but that’s the worst of it.”
“Oh thank God,” Alyssa said. “Can he leave tonight?”
“Well, we’re going to keep him overnight.”
Alyssa’s eyes flew to Derek’s. He didn’t look remotely concerned, but then it could just be that macho bull crap again. “Overnight? How come?”
“He lost consciousness at the scene, which is what really had paramedics concerned. Luckily, he wasn’t out for more than a few minutes, and he has a mild concussion. We’d like to keep him for one night, just to observe, and if all goes well he’ll be released late morning.”
“It’s ridiculous. I’m fine. I barely even have a headache.” Derek scowled at the nurse, who just raised an eyebrow.
“Nice try, Mr. Jackson, but I’ve been working here for fifteen years. Takes a lot more than a growl and a frown to intimidate me.”
Despite the tears of relief that filled Alyssa’s eyes, she chuckled. “You’ll do exactly what they tell you or you’ll answer to me.”
The half smile he sent her was sad.
For a moment, they seemed so much like their old selves. The back and forth so familiar and comforting. But nothing was fixed. This was just a momentary break from the strain.
“Here’s some pain medication, Mr. Jackson.” Nancy handed him a small cup with three pills. “There’s also an antibiotic in there.”
After Derek swallowed the pills, the nurse nodded at him. “If there isn’t anything else you need, I’ll leave you two alone and see about getting you admitted to a room for the night.”
“Thank you,” Derek said.
As soon as she stepped out and closed the curtain the tension in the room thickened. Alone with Derek for the first time since she’d let him know her birth control might be ineffective, and he’d walked out, Alyssa had no idea how to act. No clue what to say.
The combination of intense relief that he wasn’t severely injured combined with lingering adrenaline from those long moments not knowing if he was okay and the uncertainty of their status had her head spinning and tears leaking from her eyes.
All she wanted was to run to him, burrow into his warmth and strength and just erase the past few weeks. Well, the past couple years if she was really asking for a do over.
Instead, she just stood there with her arms lip at her sides, and tears streaming down her face. Despite being only three feet away from the man she loved more than anything in the world, she’d never felt more alone.
~ ~ ~ ~
A bullet wound was nothing compared to the sight of Alyssa’s tears. Combined with the horrible feeling of tension in the room and all he wanted to do was scoop her up, run home, and never let her leave his arms.
But that wouldn’t solve anything. It would be a Band-Aid on a blast injury. With nothing but a curtain separating them from the rest of the hospital as well as some powerful pain pills beginning to course through his system, this was neither the time nor the place to delve into their issues.
So that left them staring at each other not having a clue how to proceed. He might as well just say what was in the front of his mind.
“I want to come home. To the house. When they discharge me.”
Her mouth opened then closed then opened again. “Okay,” she said. His poor wife looked about as frazzled as he’d ever seen her. Strands of long blond hair had slipped out of her messy bun and hung around her face. Some of her eye makeup had run and rimmed her eyes, giving her a racoonish appearance he’d never admit to noticing. Her jacket hung off one shoulder and she appeared to be wearing his giant shirt, sweats, and some fancy ankle boot things.
He couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful woman. He should have told her, but it was as though he’d forgotten how to talk to her, how to connect.
She might be pregnant.
Standing there in front of him in that moment she might very well be carrying their child. Last time he’d thought of it, panic had tripped his throat like it was trying to strangle him. Now, he felt a flicker of excitement.
A baby.
They’d always wanted more kids, it just hadn’t happened and then…
Well then life dealt them the worst hand possible.
It was at that moment, staring at each other with so much unsaid, so much grief, sorrow, guilt, and uncertainty standing between them, that the curtain slid open. A scowling Roxie stood rigid with her arms folded over her chest and Brett’s arm slung over her shoulders.
He wore a shit-eating grin and his eyes twinkled with his typical mirth. If history was telling, Brett probably spent the last fifteen minutes working poor Roxie into a frenzy. There were some serious sparks between those two. Derek could never figure out why they hadn’t ever hooked up. Instead of letting those sparks ignite into passion, they chose to burn each other with snarky remarks and insults.
It had to be some kind of long, drawn-out foreplay. Waste of time if you asked him, but to each his own.
“You know, man, if you’d just told me how much of a problem you had with the butterfly tattoo, I’d have cancelled my date. You didn’t have to go and get shot to keep me from the lovely Jessica.”
Derek grunted. “It wasn’t a date and you damn well know it.”
“Huh?” Lyss looked between the two men with a raised eyebrow. “What did we miss?”
“Sounds like Brett was on his way to a sleazy booty call when Der got shot. Surprise, surprise,” Roxie said, her voice rife with disgust.
“Jealous, honey? You know if you ask real nice I just might throw you a—”
“Okay, Brett, we all get it. You’re a stud. Now, leave Rox alone.” Lyss had crossed the room and now stood with her arm around a frowning Roxie’s shoulders. The stiffness in her posture relaxed when their friends joined them, like she needed some kind of buffer to feel comfortable around him.
That couldn’t be a good sign.
They stayed and shot the shit for about forty-five minutes. Most of that time was him recounting the robbery for Lyss and Roxie. Where Roxie was fascinated with the story and rapid fired questions at him, Lyss drew in on herself the longer the story went on.
Maybe he shouldn’t have described it in such detail. She’d had quite the scare that night. He tried to put himself in her shoes and it wasn’t exactly a fun place to be. Had he heard Lyss was shot and didn’t have any further information he’d have gone out of his fucking mind. He’d have torn the city apart to get to her and make sure she was okay.
After a while, Nancy returned to prepare him to be transported from the ER to a room for the rest of the night. He’d convinced Alyssa to go home and get some sleep. Brett lived a stone’s throw from the hospital and offered to pick Derek up at discharge and drive him out to their home in Arlington.
Roxie and Brett begged out saying they’d give Lyss and Derek a few moments alone.
Great. A few more moments of awkward.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you at the house tomorrow then.”
It hurt. It physically hurt to see the aloofness in his normally warm and loving wife. He had no one to blame but himself for that one. But he planned to take the first steps toward mending the damage the second he stepped foot into his house.
“I’ll be there. We’ll talk,” he said.
She held his gaze for a moment before flicking her attention to his shoulder. Then in a move he wasn’t expecting, she rushed forward and gave him a gentle hug while planting a soft kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for being okay,” she whispered against his ear. Then she stepped back and gave him another of those sad smiles before slipping around the curtain.
Alone with nothing to distract himself, two things happened. First, the pain in both the base of his skill and his shoulder screamed to life and made him groan out loud. And second, his mind went straight to thoughts of his troubles with Lyss.
Lyss said something to the therapist the other day. Something he hadn’t understood at the time, but it was beginning to make sense now. She’d said life was moving forward whether they wanted it to or not. Whether they were lost in the past or not.
The world kept turning, the sun rose three hundred and sixty-five times per year, he aged, new clients discovered his business, and his wife was possibly pregnant.
Life moving forward.
There was a strange feeling forming in the pit of his stomach. Almost a flutter of, dare he say…excitement? Just a day ago he wouldn’t have thought it possible, but seeing Alyssa burst in there tonight all disheveled and in a tizzy, potentially carrying his child, he didn’t feel the abject panic that he had the other night.
Derek wasn’t overly religious. He’d seen enough evil in the world to make him question the notion of a benevolent God. The jury was still out on whether or not he believed in an afterlife, but for some reason, he could almost feel Katie nudging him back into life.
Maybe that’s what this was, whether a false alarm or a true pregnancy, maybe it was Katie’s way of stepping in and giving him the push he needed. Because let’s face it, he wasn’t going to abandon Alyssa if she was having his child. Hell, he’d never leave her anyway, but they were stuck. They needed something to jolt the life back into their relationship.
“This your doing, Katie bug?” he whispered into the quiet room.
There wasn’t an answer of course, but a sense of peace settled over him. That was answer enough.
Life moving forward.