You Drive Me Crazy (The Blackwells of Crystal Lake 2)

Regan left the room and found some privacy in a storage closet located at the end of the hallway. It was nearly eleven at night, and she had no idea if she could even get hold of him, but she calmed herself and called his number. He answered on the first ring.

“Regan.”

“Hey,” she replied, her throat scratchy.

“What’s wrong?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and counted to three.

“Regan? You’re freaking me out.”

“Sorry. I… Wyatt, it’s Patrick. He’s in the hospital, and things don’t look good for him.”

“That can’t be. I talked to him yesterday. Told him I’d see him next week. We had plans.” She could feel his hurt and anger through the phone.

“It’s a number of things, but there’s concern over tumor growth, and right now, he’s in a coma.”

Wyatt swore, and she winced at the sound of something crashing. “Look, I know you have your big race on Sunday and need to prepare, so please try not to dwell on it. Gwen just thought you should know what the situation is, and if there’s any change, I’ll let you know.”

Silence greeted her words.

“Wyatt?”

“Yeah.”

“Please drive safely, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“I gotta go, Regan. Thanks for calling.”

She stared at the phone, a little shocked at his abrupt dismissal, and more than a little hurt. She knew Wyatt was upset, and the clinical part of her brain told her to forget about it and move on. People handled stress and disappointment and pain in different ways.

It didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

Regan hung her head in her hands and cried. She cried for Patrick. For Gwen and Brad. For Wyatt and all the Blackwell boys. She cried for John and Angel. For Darlene, whose love might have been enough to keep that family glued together, but ultimately wasn’t returned by the man who held her heart.

She cried for herself, for the love and the life she would never have.

And then she got up, found a basin, and rinsed her face before heading back out to the ICU and the little boy who’d managed to steal her heart.

Chapter 31

Wyatt wasn’t the kind of man to ask for many favors, but he had no problem asking Stu Randall to borrow his private plane. After he got off the phone with Regan, he’d driven out to Stu’s mansion and, over the protestations of his staff, insisted they wake up their boss.

Maybe it was the fact that Stu was half-asleep, or maybe it was because he wanted him the hell out of his house. Whichever it was, Wyatt managed to convince the man to call up his pilot and get things in order so Wyatt could fly home to Michigan immediately.

“This boy, is he going to die?” Stu’s own family had a tragic history not many people knew about. His brother, Angus, had been in a farming accident on their ranch. The boy had been fifteen. He’d sustained massive head trauma and had existed in a vegetative state for years. The only reason Wyatt knew this was because one night over a bottle of bourbon, Stu had shared the story.

“Not today,” Wyatt replied.

“He must mean a lot to you.”

“He does.”

“Okay, then.”

They didn’t talk about the race on Sunday or anything to do with NASCAR. Wyatt hopped in his truck and headed to the airport, hoping like hell the pilot would be there and ready by the time he made it.

In the end, he had to wait a few hours for a flight plan to be filed and for another pilot to be located. Stu’s regular guy had been at a family function and was in no shape to get behind the controls of a plane. By the time he landed at a small commercial airport about thirty minutes from Crystal Lake, the sun was just painting the edge of the night sky in streaks of orange and yellow.