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The nurse went straight to the end of the bed and flipped the covers up. Little blue booties were pumping air around her feet to keep her blood circulating. But the nurse pushed the blankets up further, revealing pale legs until she paused at a spot high on the side of her left calf where the skin was red and swollen as if she’d just gotten a bee sting. Gently prodding the area, the nurse shook her head and rasped, “Good God almighty,” and then she reached for the bedside phone to make a call.
“We need an anticoagulant in 4C, stat.”
As she hung up, I drifted to Spirit Raina’s side and reached out to cover her physical hand with my own. “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
Next to me, Raina gasped and jerked a step back. “Holy shit, I can feel that.”
I glanced at her in confusion, only for the nurse to answer, “Blood clot.”
Swerving back because that sounded more pertinent than Raina feeling my touch, I repeated, “Blood clot?”
The nurse nodded and started to check Raina’s vitals. “Looks like you got here just in time, Mr. Union. If that had traveled to her lungs…”
When she shook her head, not even daring to voice the outcome of such a situation, I swallowed thickly. “But she’s going to be okay now?”
“We’re going to put a little something-something in her IV real quick here, and thin her blood right down. You just wait and see,” she promised with an assuring nod. “We got this.”
“Okay.” I started to back away from the bed until I bumped into the side chair, where I sat heavily and blew out a trembling breath. “Okay.”
“How did you know to check there?”
I glanced up in surprise, and the nurse watched me from the bed where she was trying to manually massage more circulation into Raina’s leg. When she lifted her eyebrows, waiting for an answer, my lips parted.
My brain went blank, and I had no idea what to tell her.
“I—I don’t know,” I said, wincing when her expression filled with suspicion. “I had a dream, I guess.”
“Well, you keep on dreaming, then, ya hear? You might’ve just saved this little lady’s life.” As another nurse swept into the room, carrying a new IV bag, she smiled in approval and nodded. “There we go. Here’s the good stuff.”
As they transferred one IV for another, I wrung my hands, watching. “Is it okay if I stay for another minute?”
The nurse sent me an amused glance. “Darlin’, after pulling off a miracle like that, I ain’t ever tossing you out of this girl’s room again. You’re her guardian angel.”
“You really are,” Raina agreed as she sat down on the arm of my chair to play with my hair. I glanced up at her before turning my attention to the girl on the bed.
After the attendants checked her over, they nodded at me and left the room.
And Raina softly started to sing “The Wind Beneath My Wings.”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes.
“You’re everything I would like to be,” she went on.
“Alright, Bette Midler,” I cautioned, lifting a hand to calm her down even as I smiled over the praise. “Let’s not get too crazy. All I did was ask them to look at your leg.”
“Oh no,” she argued. “You heard the nurse. You’re my guardian angel now. You saved my life tonight.”
My chin trembled, and I glanced toward the body on the bed. “Yeah, well… Thanks for not dying,” I countered softly.
Because I had a feeling she could save my life right back, keeping me from suffering through a long and lonely existence.
When Raina leaned her face over to rest her brow against mine, I closed my eyes, relishing the contact until I remembered… “Could you really feel my hand on yours?”
“Oh, yeah!” Reminded of that, she popped up and hurried to the bed, encouraging, “Try it again, will you? Let’s see if it was just an anomaly or something we can do now.”
“Okay.” I pushed up from the chair and drew in a deep breath as I neared the bed. The machines around her beeped and pumped air, keeping her alive, and I hated how pale and still she looked in her physical form.
“Close your eyes,” I murmured. “I want to see if you can guess where I touch you.”
