Mount Mercy

I kept walking. He cursed and ran to catch up.

42

Dominic

IT DOESN’T MATTER which hospital you’re in or even which country you’re in: worried people look the same. Mothers and fathers. Sisters and brothers. Sons and daughters—that’s always tough. They cry and they pray and they drink too much coffee as they wait for news. But most of all, they pace. I must have watched a thousand people pace.

I’d never been the one doing the pacing, before.

The surgery had started four hours ago and I was as worried about Beckett as I was about Rebecca. If it went wrong, if the kid didn’t make it, Beckett was never going to forgive herself. I could tell, just from watching them together, how much she liked Rebecca. She’d make a great mom. There was a part of me that was already imagining some idyllic existence with me and her and, someday, kids. But then the memory would slam into me. That night. The dark house. So much blood.

How could you? How could I feel this way about someone who wasn’t them? And it was getting harder. I felt like a swimmer clawing for the surface, the memory dragging me down by the ankles and the future just out of reach, bright and glorious above the surface. The more I fell for Beckett, the harder my past dragged me away from her. I either had to break free and be with her or let her go and sink down into the darkness forever. Right now, though, I just wanted her to be okay.

She emerged from the OR. “How is she?” I demanded. She was still in gloves and mask so I grabbed her wrists instead of her hands. “How did it go? Is she okay? Are you okay? Talk to me!”

She was saying something, but it was muffled.

“What?” I asked, heart pounding.

“Let me take my mask off!”

Oh. I let go of her wrists, chastened. Too much coffee.

She pulled down her mask. “It went well.”

I knew by now how much of a perfectionist she was. If Beckett said it went well, the surgery must have been a work of art. I picked her up and hugged her.

“I’ve got her on a ventilator for now,” said Beckett into my shoulder. “But she should be able to come off it in a couple of days.”

I gently pushed her back so that I could look at her. Both of us were drunk with relief. The ER was under control, Rebecca was okay... we made it. I leaned down and kissed her. Soft and sweet at first, exploring her lips as I breathed in her scent, my hands sliding down her back to her rump. Then it turned hot and dirty as I squeezed her there, our mouths open and frantic, panting—

We broke as Krista, Adele and Lina emerged from the OR, pushing the sleeping Rebecca and her portable ventilator on a gurney. They were heading down to the ER but there wasn’t space in the elevator for us, too, so we let them go ahead. Krista winked at Beckett as the doors closed.

I realized it was dark outside. The operation had taken the whole afternoon and it was past seven. “Come on,” I told Beckett. “We need to get you something to eat. You haven’t stopped since breakfast. And I want to check on Taylor, too.” The poor kid was just a student, but she’d seen more in one day than most doctors see in a lifetime.

I couldn’t be bothered to wait for the elevator to come back up so we took the stairs, holding hands the whole way down. Both of us were exhausted. Maybe, if it stayed quiet, we could grab a few hours’ sleep in a spare room. And before we slept….

I was still thinking about sex when we emerged into the ER. The silence should have been a warning, but it was only when I heard a rifle being cocked that I pulled up short. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom of the hallway, I saw Colt in the shadows and Seth beside him. Both had guns trained on us.

“We’re here for our man,” said Colt, his voice a low rasp.

I pushed Beckett behind me, but I knew it wouldn’t do much good. Colt was carrying an assault rifle and I’d seen its power that morning. The bullets would go right through me and hit her.

I glanced around. We were in a quiet hallway near the back of the ER, thankfully away from the patients. Colt and Seth must have slipped in through an unlocked door at the rear. There were three staff nearby, all standing with their hands raised, silent and terrified. My heart nearly stopped when I saw that one of them was Taylor. We’d strolled right into a hostage situation.

“You can take your guy,” I told Colt. The fear made the Irish come out strong in my voice: my stomach was churning, thinking what one of those high-powered bullets could do to Beckett, or Taylor, or one of the patients. “Just put the gun down and I’ll take you right to him.”