Chapter Eighteen
Time was a blur for Lindsey. People surrounded her, vague figures coming and going. Someone was screaming, but she didn’t know who. Loud voices shouted to each other. And an unfamiliar sound intruded into her consciousness. Then she felt herself being lifted, moved around, placed on a hard flat surface, and a heavy bandage was pressed to her side.
She felt the prick of a needle and heard, “We’ve got the IV started.”
“I know you hurt, Lindsey, but we can’t give you anything until we get you to the hospital and you’re evaluated,” someone said, unfamiliar but soothing. “Can you hold on for a little bit? Here. Your boyfriend wants to hold your hand. I think he’s going to shoot me unless I let him.”
“I’m here, sugar. Squeeze my hand.” Nick’s voice, low, warm, comforting.
She felt whatever she was on lift off the ground and realized vaguely they were in some kind of helicopter. Probably a medical one, based on the equipment they were using on her. She clung to Nick’s hand as they blazed through the night, her world tilting and turning. She was afraid she was going to vomit any minute, but Nick kept talking to her, begging her to hang on.
Nick, who she’d thought was only using her for immediate amusement. Right now, she didn’t care. He was her lifeline.
At the hospital in Bangor, more strangers waited for her, propelling her away on a gurney with wheels that bumped and caused pain with every movement. More hands on her. Incredible pain.
Finally, a new voice. Kind.
“Lindsey, I’m Dr. Robbins.” She forced her eyes open to see him leaning over her. “Your vitals look decent despite the blood loss. We need to draw some blood for some tests, then we can give you something for the pain. In a minute, you’ll start to feel better. Here goes.”
“Nick?” she managed to croak.
“I don’t know who Nick is, but if he’s the man making all that noise, he’s waiting right outside. Now just relax and let the medication do its work.”
She drifted for a long time, in a state of semi-euphoria, the pain hovering in the background, images flashing across her mind. She couldn’t wipe away that awful picture in the kitchen that kept replaying in slow motion. Brianna holding her at gunpoint, raking the gun down her cheek. Brianna with that awful story. Nick signaling her. Then the shot and the terrible burning pain in her side.
Bits of conversation penetrated her consciousness.
“I’d really like to take her back to San Antonio.” Nick’s voice, demanding, insistent.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to move her until the bullet’s removed.” The doctor. She recognized his voice, too. Kind. “She’s lost a lot of blood. The slightest jostling could move that bullet and start the bleeding again.”
“I want her where I know the doctors.” Nick again, sounding brutal.
“I assure you, we have an excellent staff here. We need to operate right away. Let us get the bullet removed and some repair work done. Then give us twenty-four hours in ICU, maybe another day or two after that and you can take her back on a Life Flight plane. Will that do?”
“Let them do their job, Nick.” A voice she’d heard before but couldn’t remember where. “They know what they’re doing. Come on, let’s get some coffee.”
“If you go down to the surgical waiting room, I’ll find you as soon as we’re finished,” the doctor told him. He cleared his throat. “One more thing. We’ll have to give her a spinal and a very low dose of intravenous anesthetic so it may be a little rough for her. We can’t take any chances with the baby.”
Baby? What the hell was he talking about?
Lindsey tried to swim up through the fog in order to hear better.
“Baby?” Nick sounded stunned. “What do you mean, baby? That’s impossible.”
“Well, all I can tell you is, she’s definitely pregnant. I’d say in the very early stages.”
“She told me she couldn’t get pregnant.” Nick’s voice became harsh, even angry. “Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely. We always check in case we have to take precautions because of it.”
“I don’t understand how this happened,” Nick was saying. He sounded cold, far away. “She said this couldn’t happen. I don’t understand any of this.”
“Come on, Nick.” The familiar stranger again. “Let’s go down the hall. They need to work on her.”
A baby. The words echoed in her brain. Nick’s baby. Unbelievable, but it seemed created by what she’d thought was their love. And which he, obviously, didn’t want. A child would interfere with his plans.
A pain stabbed at Lindsey’s heart, greater than any she felt from her wound. So everything had been a lie after all. She should have known this would be his reaction. By some miracle she’d conceived a child, and Nick, in his panic, was blaming her, resenting her. This was worse than being rejected because she couldn’t conceive.
And who could she blame but herself? She’d let down her guard and ended up sucker punched. She tried to think what to do, but the medication was making her so groggy she couldn’t focus.
Well, she might be losing Nick, but she would have his child, a child she’d thought was impossible. God had somehow chosen to bless her, and she would treasure this gift.
The doctor was back, explaining in that kind, soothing voice what was going to happen. “We’ll keep you as comfortable as we can, but we can’t depress the baby’s heart rate. Okay? And you’ll need to see your obstetrician as soon as we release you. Okay, then. If you understand all this, squeeze my hand.”
She squeezed it as tight as she could. Then the stick of another needle, and she felt herself drifting again, sinking down into a very soft place.
****
The waiting room was a carbon copy of every one Nick had ever been in. Hard plastic chairs, a lumpy couch, out of date magazines. How come no one ever thought of the comfort of the people waiting, he wondered irritably. Of course, a comfortable chair wouldn’t have mattered because he refused to sit down. Instead, he paced.
He had called Reno to tell him what happened, to come to Maine. His partner had messaged the pilot to pick him up in Boston at once. He came directly to the hospital the minute they landed and had been there for more than an hour with him.
“She’ll be fine, Nick,” Reno told him. “Will you sit down? You’re driving me crazy.”
“Yeah, right.” Nick shoved his hands in his pockets. “I could have killed that damn woman with my bare hands. It’s a good thing I had to take care of Lindsey or I would have.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Not deliberately like that.”
“How the hell did this happen, anyway? I should have left the island yesterday. Or at least this morning.” He looked at Reno. “She’s pregnant. Did I tell you that?”
“I was right there with you when you got the news, remember?”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen. She has a lot of scarring that the docs told her would prevent it.”
“Nothing is absolute.” Reno studied him. “Are you glad or mad?”
“Mad? Mad?” Nick raked his hands through his hair. “Hell, no, I’m not mad. I’m ecstatic.”
“And what are your plans once all this is resolved?”
“I’m going to marry her, just as soon as I can get her out of a hospital bed. I’m going to be a father,” he said with a note of wonderment. “A father! I can hardly believe it. God, this is wonderful. I’m going to take her home and settle down to being a satisfied husband and father.”
“They’ll put this on the front page of the paper,” Reno joked, obviously trying to lighten the atmosphere.
Nick dropped into one of the plastic chairs. “You know, Ruben filled in a lot of the blanks about Lindsey’s past when I called to tell him what happened.” He replayed the conversation over and over in his head. “‘I should have told you before,’ the man kept saying. ‘Maybe this wouldn’t have happened.’”
Nothing Nick said could change Ruben’s mind. Or Mary’s either. And now Nick related it to Reno.
The story was one of the most devastating he’d ever heard. Two bright, beautiful young people, so much in love, blessed with everything—wealth, position, breeding, and good looks. The respected young attorney on a fast track in corporate law. The society beauty with brains as well as looks, a perfect complement to her husband. And they were genuinely nice on top of it. Their families were friends of long standing.
Then a child was born, the icing on the cake, it seemed. A blue-eyed doll with soft brown curls and dimpled cheeks, but a problem from day one. She was angry, temperamental, and given to violent tantrums. Marie and Brent were beside themselves.
The grandmothers, Carrie and Renee, saw something in the little girl neither of the young parents did, but they couldn’t make the couple accept the truth. Even their pediatrician had no influence with them. When he urged them to get special treatment for the child, they fled his office and ignored his words.
This will pass, they’d said. She’s just a high-spirited child, they told their families. But it only got worse as she got older. When Marie became pregnant again, the tantrums escalated. The child tore her mother’s maternity clothes and defaced the nursery. Under great pressure, they agreed to try medication, and for a time, it seemed to work. She was calmer, more tractable and easier to be around. Then the baby was born, and the grandmothers sensed the growing danger.
But of all the things any of them could have predicted, the murder of the little boy was shockingly unexpected. Marie was destroyed. She cradled her dead baby for hours, unable to stop crying. She couldn’t even look at little Barbara Jean. Take her away, she’d said. Get her out of my sight. Get her out of this house. She wanted to call the police and have her committed.
Brent couldn’t bring himself to go that far, but Marie was pregnant again, and he couldn’t put the new baby at risk, so they made a plan. They kept the body in the nursery with the door closed while they put their idea into motion
And so the deed had been done. Her father called his old friend, the judge, explaining the situation in distraught tones, and Judge Webster agreed to help. A new will was drawn up, notarized and couriered to the law firm. Marie and Brent made arrangements to bury the little boy very quietly, leaving the paperwork with his old friend, the judge. They dove off the sailboat and swam to shore where Howard Littman had hidden a car for them and left some money. And then they headed to Texas.
They changed their names. The judge helped them with everything—new identification, the purchase of the ranch, whatever they needed. With a supreme effort, they proceeded to make a new life for themselves on a ranch in a small town in the Texas Hill Country. The new baby arrived, a sunny, beautiful child with gorgeous sable hair who brought joy to everyone around her. And if an air of sadness hung over them, they did their best to ignore it. Life went on for all of them.
Nick was exhausted when he finished, but at least the telling had kept his mind occupied.
Five interminable hours passed before the doctor finally came to find them. Nick was as tense as a wire, exhaling the breath he’d been holding only when the doctor smiled.
“She’s doing fine. We had to remove the spleen, but we were very careful how we did it and kept a constant supply of blood to the uterus. She and the baby are doing quite well. By the way, I can understand why the doctors told her what they did about her ability to conceive. There’s a tremendous amount of scarring in the reproductive system that looks to be the result of acute endometriosis.”
“That’s what she said,” Nick told him.
“All it takes is one tiny opening and one very strong swimmer, though, and apparently that’s what happened.” The doctor’s face sobered. “The next challenge will be to see if she can carry to term and deliver successfully, without damage to herself.”
“Is there a chance she won’t?” Nick stared hard at the man, seeking some kind of reassurance.
“I can’t make any promises, but I’d say with proper rest and care, she and the baby will be fine. They’ll be taking her up to ICU in a moment,” he went on, as if he had not just dropped a bombshell. “I want to monitor her there until tomorrow. Then we’ll talk about moving her. I have to check on another patient, but if you’ll come with me, I’ll take you up there. You can see her as soon as they have her settled.”
“Thank God. Thank God.”
Nick kept repeating it to himself all the way to the ICU, Reno hard on his heels. Lindsey would be fine. The baby would be fine. He would spend the rest of his life making up to her for his lapses. He couldn’t wait to take her in his arms.
“Just give us another minute, please,” a nurse told him when he entered the ICU unit. “If you’ll just wait right here?”
Nick could see them moving Lindsey from the OR gurney to a bed, checking her IVs, her vital signs, hooking her up to monitors. He looked at her and wanted to cry.
All my fault. She’s already mad at me for God knows what. Will she see this as the final end to us? No, we’re going to share a child. We have to be together. I’ll find a way to make her see that.
****
Lindsey was drifting again, her body wrapped in pain but her mind suspended. People moved her, jostled her, and she wanted to cry out, only her mouth wouldn’t work.
“Did you hear what the doctor said about the baby?” Nick’s voice, piercing the fog surrounding her. “Complication doesn’t begin to explain this. I have to do something.”
Do something? What did he mean? Did he want her to get rid of it? No way was she having an abortion. He certainly didn’t need to be involved, but it was her baby and she was keeping it. Why couldn’t she make her brain work?
“I think you’ve done it already.” The same familiar voice, this time with a little chuckle.
“That’s not what I meant. Listen, I need to call Stacy, but I can’t use a cell phone in here. Can you go down to the pay phone and call her for me? Tell her there’s been a change in plans and I’ll call her later with more details. In the meantime, she should put everything we discussed on hold.”
Lindsey bit her lip, trying not to cry out. She hurt, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.
Stacy again. Why did he need to call her right now? Couldn’t he at least wait to find out if she lived or died before getting back to another woman? He didn’t want the baby, and he didn’t want her. She wanted to roll into the fog and stay there forever.
When she opened her eyes again, Nick was sitting in the chair by her bed. When her lids fluttered, he reached forward to take her hand. “They’ll only let me stay for five minutes,” he said hoarsely, “but I had to touch you, make sure you were okay.”
I’m fine, she wanted to tell him. You don’t have to be concerned about me. Go to your Stacy, or whatever. She tried to speak, but she was still too drugged. The next minute she was asleep again.
She woke briefly several times during the next hours, always to see Nick sitting in the chair. One time she noticed there were fewer machines in the room and the room itself was larger. The next time she woke, she felt more alert. She was still in a lot of pain, but she felt more aware of her surroundings.
Nick was standing by the window, but she moved and the rustle of the bedclothes caught his attention.
“How’re you doing, sugar?” he asked softly. “You gave us all quite a scare.”
“Fine.” The words came out as a croak.
“We’re chartering a hospital plane to fly you back to San Antonio in another day. I called Ruben, who about took my head off when he heard you’d been shot. But he did give me the name of your doctor and I put a call in to him. He’s going to make all the arrangements at Methodist Hospital.”
“Nick?” Speaking was a huge effort for her.
“Yeah, sugar?”
She forced herself up from the fuzziness she kept sinking into, and the pain that stole her breath. “Get out.”
“What?” His face lost its color. “What do you mean?”
Sweat drenched her body, the effort to speak almost more than she could handle. “Just what I said. Get out. Now.” She swallowed and closed her eyes.
“Lindsey?” A woman’s voice. The nurse? “Lindsey, I have pain medication for you. I’m injecting it into your IV. You should feel a difference in seconds.”
“Lindsey.” Nick again.
She felt herself falling down a long slide of clouds. “Go away. Please.”
Someone came into the room behind Nick, and she heard the other male voice. Reno, she finally figured out.
“Come on, Nick. Let her sleep. You can talk to her about this later.
****
Nick let Reno lead him out the door. He was in such a state of shock he couldn’t even think. He thought he’d at least have a chance to explain things. To apologize to her, tell her how much he loved her. What the hell was happening? Outside, he sagged against the wall.
Reno literally had to prop him up. “She’s just reacting to the pain and the medication,” he said. “We’ll try again when she wakes up. Lindsey Ferrell doesn’t seem the type not to at least give you a hearing. I know your silver tongue. You can talk to her later.”
Reno couldn’t have been more wrong. When she woke again, they discovered Lindsey had left explicit instructions that she didn’t want to see anyone. Not Nick, not anyone else. No matter how he shouted or threatened, Nick could not get past the hospital’s formidable barrier.
Reno finally bulled his way in the next morning.
“I said no one in the room,” Lindsey told him.
“I just want to talk to you for a minute, okay?”
She turned her face away from him. “There’s nothing to discuss.”
“I’m not going to get into anything that was said between you and Nick, who I admit can be a handful when he wants to be. I can tell you two things. First, he promised Quinn to take care of you and that’s what he planned to do. He’s beating himself up over what happened.”
“I forgive him. Okay?”
“Second thing. You need to get back to San Antonio. You’re in no shape to take care of yourself or to make any moves without assistance. The agency has arranged for a plane to take you back. Your doctor will be advised of your arrival time, and he’ll be at the hospital to meet you. That is non-negotiable, so don’t waste your energy trying to argue. You’re a client, and you were hurt while under our care. We will take care of you.”
He held out his hand to her, then withdrew when she ignored it.
“I know you’re very angry at Nick right now,” he went on, “and I don’t blame you. In your position, I’d feel he let me down, too. But he feels worse about what happened than you do. He really needs to see you. Can I impose on you to give him just a few minutes?”
She shook her head. “Not today, not any day. I’ll accept your offer of the flight because I don’t seem to have a lot of choice, but I don’t want him on the plane. Just tell him to stay the hell away from me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m very tired.”
The last thing she heard before she drifted off again was Reno saying, “Well, I tried, but somehow you’ve made a real mess out of this. I don’t know how you think you’re going to fix it.”