I caught his hand up in mine and smiled down at him.
“Hey,” I breathed. “You’re back.”
He winked.
“Do you think…” He drew in a deep, rattling breath. “That if I die, they can put my other kidney in the freezer for when you need it again?”
My heart shattered into a million tiny pieces.
“No, baby,” I said. “Your kidney will go to waste. I wouldn’t be able to use it…you’ll have to stay alive and use it instead.”
There were tears tracking down my cheeks. Down his as well.
“I’m not sure I’m going to make it,” he admitted. “Something feels different about this time.”
I brought his hand up to rest against my cheek. “You’re going to make it.”
He didn’t contradict me, but his non-answer was answer enough.
He really didn’t think he was going to make it, and he didn’t want me to have false hope that he would.
We arrived at the hospital and Pace’s hand was pulled from mine as he was practically rushed out of the back of the ambulance.
I followed at a much slower pace as I tried to figure out where I should go and what I should do.
I was nearly run over by the other medics that followed us in with Sergeant Jackson.
He was doing much better than my man was.
He had his foot wrapped in gauze, and he was laughing with the medics as if this was an everyday occurrence.
“Careful there, murderer,” I sneered as he passed. “Don’t smile too much. Your day is about to get a whole lot worse.”
Jackson’s face went from jovial to glacial.
“What was that?” he asked, stiffening.
I turned to find another cop and handed him the phone that I somehow managed to acquire. “Watch the video on this. Find Ford Spurlock for the passcode. It explains, in detail, how Sergeant Jackson murdered Pace Vineyard’s sister.”
The officer, who was older and looked like he knew his way around assholes like Jackson, nodded his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
But before he took the phone and went searching, he jerked his chin up in the direction of another officer. One that I knew well.
“Justice,” he called out. “Follow ol’ Sergeant Jackson here and make sure that he doesn’t get too excited and leave. I’ll send a rookie to babysit.”
“Yes, Captain Morgan.” Justice jerked his head. “He won’t get out of my sight.”
I didn’t wait to see what he had to say because a nurse touched me gently on the arm.
“Are you Oakley?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Pace is asking for you,” she said. “He’s agitated, and we believe he has a bullet in his chest. We don’t want him getting more upset, and the meds that we’re administering can’t be given in higher doses because…”
I didn’t wait for her to explain because I could hear Pace calling my name. Loudly.
I started running toward his voice and found him thrashing on the bed as he looked for me.
The moment that our eyes met, he stilled.
“Baby.”
His breathing was hard to listen to. He wheezed and whistled as he took breath into his lungs.
Jesus Christ.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. You’re okay,” I chattered. “Nothing’s happened to me. I’m okay.”
At least, I assumed that was why he was so scared all of a sudden. I’d been with him in the ambulance for the entire way there and hadn’t followed him into the hospital. He’d been worried.
“You don’t have to worry,” I repeated. “Let these people work on you.”
The people were already working on him now that he wasn’t fighting. People were talking. Doctors were assessing. Nurses were bustling.
He breathed in a rattly breath, but his eyes never left mine.
“I’d give up my life for just one of your breaths,” he said. “When I saw her aim that gun in Jackson’s direction, she swung right past your face to do it.”
She had. He was right. I’d felt that moment of fear as she’d swung it.
And that was exactly what he did.
He gave up his life just so I would take one more.
Tears were leaking freely down my cheeks, unchecked and unencumbered. I could feel my shirt collar becoming damp with them.
Then everything just stopped.
His breathing. The grip in his hand. The life in his eyes.
“He’s in V-Fib,” I heard said.
I blinked and backed up as nurse after nurse began bustling around, pushing me farther and farther back.
Suddenly, Pace’s shirt was cut the rest of the way from his body, the useless pieces of material being thrown down into an ever-widening pool of his blood on the floor.
The metal clink-clink of his gold badge hitting the cold tiled floor had my eyes going there, just as his Kevlar vest was tossed into the pool of blood, too.
My eyes went to the Kevlar vest.
The one that’d saved his life.
The one that my father had suggested that I give him.
It was special.
A brand-new vest that was supposed to stop him from being shot—at least where the armor was able to protect him—when there were armor-piercing bullets involved.