TWENTY-THREE

“I was shot.” Graham sighed as he felt the presence ease up to him and sit beside him.

He was in a white place, a bright place. This was a place he had never been before, even those times Doogan had managed to get him wounded.

“Yeah, son, you were shot.”

He turned his head, resignation weighing heavily in his chest as he stared back at his parents.

Garrett and Mary Brock looked as vibrant now as they had the day they died, as they’d looked hours before they stepped onto that doomed plane.

“Hell.” Rubbing his hands over his face as he stared around him, the total lack of anything but the pure white surroundings and his parents convinced him as nothing else could—he was dead.

His mother laughed, a sound as soft and loving as a breeze.

“You’re not dead,” she promised, easing down to sit on his other side.

He felt her arm slide around his waist.

“Then why am I here?”

“To help you decide if you’re going to fight to live, or if you’re going to give up,” his father answered, that firm, commanding tone of his just as grating now as it had ever been.

He gave his father an irritated look. “There’s days I’m convinced you’re a Mackay.”

It wasn’t a compliment.

Garrett chuckled at the observation. “Rowdy, Dawg, Natches, and I were damned good friends at one time.” He sighed. “But our lives were going in different directions.” He looked around Graham and smiled at the wife who had died with him. “We needed different things at the time, I guess.”

Propping an elbow on his knee and resting his chin in his hand, Graham stared into the white surroundings, wondering where the door was.

“Where do you want the door to be?” his mother asked.

“It’s highly uncomfortable knowing you’re doing that,” he told her. The knowledge that she was hearing what he thought instead of what he said had him hoping he could control his thoughts.

“As a boy, you were always so serious,” she said softly, a smile reflecting in her voice.

“I didn’t grow out of that, Mom.” He wondered if she had hoped he would.

“So I see,” she murmured. “But what a fine man you’ve become, Graham. You’ve made more than enough sacrifices in your life, done more than enough to earn your chance at peace.”

Damn, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

“I don’t think I’m ready for peace, Mom,” he said warily. “I’ve still got some fight left in me.”

“Do you?” his father asked. “I haven’t seen a lot of fight since you came back from Afghanistan. Even though the woman who died in your arms was a viper, still you let the memory of it hold you back from the place you know your heart belongs. That’s not fighting, son.”

Graham slid a slow look in his father’s direction. “It felt like a hell of a fight.”

Garrett Brock chuckled at the comment. “Love is sometimes the greatest battle a man can fight. You knew she wasn’t like the woman who tried to be her in an attempt to deceive you. You’ve always known she was right there, waiting for you, loving you. Perhaps the question I should ask is, why did you fight it?”

“What does Lyrica have to do with this place?” The white peace was too encompassing. Too peaceful. And he didn’t see a Mackay in sight.

Life without Mackays would be boring, he thought morosely, realizing the part they’d played in his life for so long.

“Those boys promised me the day you were born that they would always look out for you if I were to leave your life,” his father revealed. “They’ve done well. But it’s not the Mackays in general you’d miss, is it, boy?”

He hated it when his father called him boy. It meant he was disappointing him.

“To return is to face her,” his mother said then, her voice gentle. “Having you with us would complete the circle we began in that life. But it would not complete the circle you were meant to build, Graham. Which choice will you make?”

The whiteness slowly receded. It became a world washed in color, in sight and sound and scents that were incredibly sharp and focused.

He still sat. He was in the garden his father had created for the wife who so loved the sight and scent of flowers. He sat on one of the chair-size boulders, his position the same, chin resting in his palm as he watched the most incredible sight.

It was beautiful.

As he watched, the peace that suffused him was far greater than even that of the perfect white peace where his parents had come to him. It was soul deep. It was wonder and beauty; it was a perfection he’d never imagined existed.

“Mine?” he whispered, awed, so taken aback by what he was seeing that it was all he could do to contain his emotion.

“Yours,” his mother whispered, her own voice thick with emotion now. “You knew it was happening. You’ve sensed it. Isn’t it the most wondrous sight, Graham? Is this really what you want to leave? Is this what you want to continue to run from? If it is, then you can have that as well.”

“No!” He jumped to his feet to hold on to the image, anger crashing through him at the knowledge that it was leaving, that it was being taken from him. “Make it stay!”

He turned to his parents, wild with the loss pouring through him, his heart racing as he’d never felt it before, a sense of pain clenching at his chest and arm.

“Only you can make it stay, son,” Garrett said softly, somberly. “Only your choice can bring it back.”

Turning, Graham willed it back, fought for it, snarled with furious determination as the white slowly morphed again, and the image returned.

Stepping closer, he felt tears fill his eyes.

Going to one knee, he reached out, touched her face, brushed his thumb over her lips as she slept.

Then his gaze returned to the children sleeping beside her.

A boy, his Mackay looks diffused with the strong, determined lines of his father’s bloodlines.

The daughter, though, sweet heaven help them all. His daughter was pure Mackay in looks, already the image of her mother, with a hint of that bastard cousin of hers, Natches.

He couldn’t help but grin.

“The son of a bitch is going to crow about that one,” he whispered.

“Will you be there to hear it, though?” Garrett asked. “Or will Natches be the one to stand in for the father who couldn’t fight hard enough to return to her?”

—

“We’re losing him. Goddammit, we’re losing him,” Dr. Caine Branson yelled out to his surgical team, determination raging through him as he felt Graham slipping slowly away from him.

The EKG was quickly going to hell, BP was dropping.

“Like hell I’ll let you go,” he snarled softly. “I made that mad-assed father of yours a promise, Graham Brock, and I’ll be damned if you’ll see me break it.”

A lot of men had owed Garrett Brock, and Caine was but one of them. But at this moment, Caine knew, he was the most important.

His surgical team worked like the well-oiled machine it was, as though the years of working beneath him had been solely for this moment.

For this young man.

The artery was repaired, but the bullet was far too close to the heart, and the other had clipped his liver before ripping out his back.

The surgeon repairing the damage below was one of the best protégés he’d ever had. Giana Worth was worth her weight in gold. She was working quickly, efficiently, refusing to allow the teams keeping his heart beating to distract her from her job.

“BP’s coming up,” Nurse Salyer announced, though Caine could feel it, sense it.

“Heart rate’s coming back.” The male nurse, Jeffers, called out numbers.

Caine kept working. The vein was repaired. The chips of bone were removed from their precarious location next to the heart. He was almost finished, the damage nearly repaired.

“Your dad made me promise if you ever made it onto my table that I’d make damned sure you were breathing when you came off it,” he murmured.

He’d been talking to the boy since his gurney had been rushed into the ER.

“You make a liar out of me, boy, and when I reach the afterlife, I’m coming looking for you.” He worked steadily, tirelessly.

“This isn’t a good day to die,” he muttered as Graham’s heart rate fluctuated again. Garrett Brock had said that once, laughing as Caine warned him that his heroics were going to get him killed. “Buck up, boy. You’re stronger than this.”

Graham was indeed stronger.

Muttered comments and prayers slipped from the surgeon’s lips as he worked, but he was prone to do that often, anyway.

Whatever it took, he often said. He’d always felt his patients could hear him, no matter how irrational that may seem.

“There’s a girl out there crying for you, you know?” He kept the one-sided conversation moving. “Did you hear her crying your name when she came in with you? Really want to leave a Mackay sobbing, boy? Thought you knew better than that. Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches will strip your ass if they find you. Heaven or hell. It won’t matter.”

One of the techs chuckled, no doubt helplessly. They all knew the Mackays. Hell, sometimes Caine thought the whole world knew at least one Mackay, if not all of them.

“BP is strengthening,” his nurse announced, calling out the numbers.

“Excellent.” He breathed out in satisfaction. “That’s it, son. Fight. Fight for her. She’s worth it.”

The commentary continued. Fierce and demanding when it needed to be, determined and encouraging as Graham responded with that fierce will to live.

He would live. Caine refused to allow him to do otherwise.

—

Lyrica was aware of her brother, her cousins, her sisters.

Her mother sat beside her, her lips split, one eye nearly swollen shut from where Dorne had struck her.

She hadn’t realized Tim was limping at first. His leg was fractured. How he’d managed to walk like that amazed her. How he was still sitting in the waiting room, she hadn’t figured out.

Even Zoey was there, her pale green eyes damp with tears, her broken arm casted, the deep bruising at the side of her face swelling her eye nearly closed.

Jimmy Dorne had been determined to force Tim, Mercedes, or Zoey to reveal where Lyrica was hiding.

They’d sworn they didn’t know. Even Zoey, the one who feared pain the most, had fought him back, daring him to shoot her, sneering at him when he hit her. She’d declared she wouldn’t tell him even if she did know. Her brother, she’d informed Dorne, had hidden Lyrica, and she’d dared him to try to force the information from Dawg.

They’d all suffered to keep Lyrica safe.

Curled in the corner of the hard plastic couch, she turned her head back to where she had rested it in her bent arm, and she continued to pray.

To wait.

She felt ragged inside.

Her soul felt shredded, destruction held back by the thinnest thread.

Graham.

Tears fell from her eyes again, pouring from her when there shouldn’t have been tears left to shed.

She could live without him. If he was just alive. If he was just somewhere in the world finding happiness, even if it meant finding that happiness with another woman, then she would survive.

She would get up every morning, she would make herself go through each day, and she might even find a measure of peace.

Somewhere.

Without Graham . . .

What reason would there be to get up every morning?

Her mother rubbed at her shoulder and Eve and Piper sat close, trying to comfort her. But there was no comforting her.

He’d taken that bullet for her, knowing what he was doing. If he hadn’t thrown himself in front of her then she would have been the one lying there in that operating room.

She would have much preferred it to be her.

“Hey, little sister.” Natches’s voice had her head lifting quickly, her gaze meeting his immediately as he squatted in front of her.

He and Rowdy both referred to her and her sisters as their own.

She looked around quickly. Neither the surgeon nor the doctor was standing there.

“He’ll be okay,” he said, the somber belief that gleamed in his eyes pulling a harsh sob from her chest.

Covering her trembling lips with her fingers, she fought to hold back the cries and was even mostly successful. The tears were another story.

“I love him,” she whispered, her voice so hoarse she barely recognized it. “If he’s just okay, then I can live without him, Natches. I can.”

Reaching out, Natches tucked the long, mussed strands of her hair over her shoulder and thought he must really be getting old. Only one time in his life had he ever wanted to cry as much as he wanted to cry for this grown-up version of his precious Bliss.

“Did I tell you I used to know his parents really well?” he asked her gently.

Lyrica shook her head.

“Yeah.” He grinned, a flash of the wicked sensualist she’d always heard he was gleaming for a second in his eyes. “There was a time, before Chaya returned to Somerset, that I wasn’t the man I am today. Rowdy had married. Dawg and Christa were engaged, and I was a little lost,” he stated, then grinned again. “Hell, I was a lot lost, I guess. I was skunk drunk, had just wrecked yet another motorcycle on some back road, was puking my guts up because my Chaya had just left town again, and I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do.” He winked with a flash of amusement. “Never occurred to me to just go get her. Right?”

Lyrica shook her head. Natches had never done things the easy way, she knew.

“Anyway.” Rising, he sat beside her, and Lyrica didn’t even question why she was turning to him, letting him draw her into his arms and against his chest.

He kissed the top of her head gently.

“So, here I am, about three days drunk, reeking of booze and probably my own b.o. My motorcycle was totaled, handlebars bent to hell and back, and this four-wheeler comes bouncing down that dirt track I was on. Seemed I’d done strayed onto Brock property, and Garrett Brock was real particular about having a Mackay around. He stared at me like I was scum, all distasteful and disgusted. And well, let’s just say I was spewing more F-bombs than social niceties that night.”

Someone gave a brief snort of laughter.

“So Garrett drags me to this pond, throws me in a time or two, laughing at all my Mackay rage, then drags me back out and pulls me back to his four-wheeler, where he starts pouring hot coffee down my throat. Seems he knew I was there before he started out from the house. Brought coffee, lots of it, a few sandwiches, and sat there with me till dawn while I poured out my itty-bitty heart.” He rubbed at her shoulder. Her back. “Then he proceeds to tell me how butt stupid I was for letting my woman out of my life. And how he hoped his son wasn’t too damned dumb to claim what was his when he finally met her. Then . . .” He paused, drew a deep breath, and lowered his voice. “Then, he made me swear on my honor, my life, my firstborn, and whatever else he could come up with that I might actually care anything about, that if his son did turn out that damned dumb, then I’d do what he was going to do. Put all my Mackay calculation and love of games into making sure his son smartened up and realized what he was losing. A week later, Chaya was back. He’d pulled a few strings, called some friends, and made sure I had another chance to make sure she never got away from me again.”

“I knew what you were doing,” she whispered when he paused. “I figured it out.”

He grunted, then whispered low enough that no one else could hear. “Don’t tell Zoey, ’kay? She’s still a work in progress.”

“He doesn’t love me, Natches,” she told him then.

This time, pure amused devilment filled the chuckle that sounded from him.

“Oh, Lyrica, sweetheart, that dumb-ass is so in love he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground and doesn’t want to know the difference if it means losing you.”

Lifting her head, Lyrica pulled back, staring back at him, knowing not to hope. Knowing she didn’t dare hope.

“Now, whether or not he’s smart enough to realize it, we’ll see.” He sighed. “But I’m going to tell you what his father told me to tell the woman he loved if he acted that stupid. A message he wanted me to give her.”

“For me?” she whispered.

He nodded at that. “For you, sweetheart. Don’t give up on him, he said. Graham will always be strong, always be stubborn, and letting go of himself enough to take what he needs above all things won’t be easy. But if you have to, he said, tell him to remember what his mother told him before he left for the Marines.”

“What did she tell him?” She frowned back at him.

“Hell if I know,” he admitted with a grin. “But now, Mary was a smart one, don’t think she wasn’t. Knew what she wanted the first time she saw Garrett Brock, and even Mackay charm couldn’t sway her. So whatever it was, remind him of it.”

“If he wakes up,” she whispered.

“He’ll wake up,” he promised her. “If he’s Garrett Brock’s son, and trust me, he is, then he’ll wake up.”

The operating room doors swung open and the surgeon, accompanied by Graham’s doctor, stepped into the waiting room.

Lyrica came quickly to her feet, too afraid even to breathe as she felt Natches put his arm around her shoulder and her mother move beside her.

“Kyleene.” The surgeon nodded to Kye as she came to her feet as well, Sam Bryce standing beside her as Graham’s sister fought to stem her tears.

“He’s out of surgery and everything looks promising,” he announced. “It was touch-and-go a time or two, but he’s strong, and he wants to live . . .”

Kye turned to Lyrica, her smile brimming with hope as her tear-drenched eyes overflowed once again.

“I told you,” Kye whispered as she covered the short distance to give Lyrica a quick, hard hug. “I told you. He won’t leave us. He’ll not leave us.”

He was alive, that was all that mattered, Lyrica promised herself as she returned Kye’s hug and they stood together, listening to the surgeon as he described the injuries and Graham’s recovery.

He was alive. She could live with it if he wasn’t smart enough to love her. She could live with it if he loved another.

All that mattered was that he was alive.