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27
Dane
I’m alive.
I can’t seem to stop shivering. A day stuck in a river will do that to a guy. If my ankle didn’t hurt like a bitch, I’d put up a bigger fight about being carried up the embankment, but I can’t have it all my way. One thought forced me to keep my mouth shut and let the rescue workers do their job, and that was getting to Caiti as fast as possible. Any argument I’d probably lose wasn’t worth further delay.
The fight begins when they transfer me from their sled to the gurney. I’m close enough that my heart beats faster just knowing she’s near.
“You need to lie down.”
“I can sit just fine.” I throw off the hand on my shoulder. “Take me to the hospital or stab me with an IV. I don’t care. But I need to see if she’s here.”
“Ah,” the medic responds knowingly. He adjusts me into an inclined seated position. “Fine, but be a good patient and stay put or I’ll bust out the restraints.”
“I’m already buckled in,” I snap. Exhaustion threatens to whisk me to slumber, but not before I check on my girl.
Her stricken face materializes in the small crowd of my closest friends. I briefly wonder if the medic will make good on his threat because I’m half a second from jumping off and running toward her. Only knowing my ankle might be broken keeps me from the foolish decision.
Instead, I call her name. “Caiti.”
If she hears me, she doesn’t show it. The rapid rise and fall of her shoulders indicate the probability she’s stuck in a cycle of panic. Hesitant steps bring her closer, the first signs of life from her, before she breaks out in a run.
There’s my girl.
I open my arms, the blanket surrounding me crumples. I’d haul her ass right up on this gurney with me if I wasn’t surrounded by so many people. The sight of glistening tears in her dark eyes breaks my heart and fills me with guilt. I can’t believe I put her through this.
She stops short, a good six inches from where I need her to be. A look of uncertainty crosses her face. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re hurting me more by being so far away.”
Haltingly, she moves into my arms. She cradles my face, the touch warming my skin faster than any blanket could. My eyes shutter closed. I lean into her palm, relishing the instant comfort the contact brings.
“I’m okay, Mama.”
A rough hiccup breaks loose. Obviously, she’s fighting the breakdown, and I don’t want to make it worse by forcing her to express her emotions for all these people to see.
“Can she ride with me to the hospital?” I ask the medic who threatened to tie me down.
“If she can buckle up and stay in her seat.”
“She can,” I confirm sarcastically.
I’m loaded in first, and Caiti climbs in behind me, followed by the paramedic. The doors shut, securing us inside.
“Hey.” I stroke a crooked index finger along the back of her hand. The uncertainty in her eyes tears me up inside. “I’m going to be just fine.”
Her expression remains unconvinced.
“It’s just a messed-up ankle.”
“What happened out there?”
I’m momentarily distracted by the squeeze of the blood pressure cuff. “I don’t know how much Rhett told you, but I was thrown from the canoe and washed down the river.” I save her the worst details, of the number of times I was pulled beneath the surface. She doesn’t need to know how many ways I nearly drowned. “I was able to make it to the shore, but it was at a rocky embankment that I couldn’t climb. All I could do was hang on and slowly work my way downriver until I could pull myself out. By then, I was so exhausted I could only wait until they found me.”
“I don’t know what to say. This was—”
“Horrible, I know.” I fill in her sentence through chattering teeth. I’m probably hypothermic, but it’s hard for me to care.
“I was going to say it was the scariest day of my life.”
I’m stunned as she reveals so much with such a simple sentence. “Mama…”
“When Eric died, there was no waiting. No helplessly sitting around for news. He was there, we went to bed, and he was gone. This, though, spending hours not knowing what happened to you, if you were hurt or if I’d ever even see you again, it was a pain so unimaginable, I questioned if I could even survive it.”
I feel her emotional retreat like a physical barrier between us. “You survived it. You’re so much stronger than you believe. I’m here.” I force her hand to my chest to feel the life thumping within me. “I’m safe.”
“I can’t go through something like that again.”
“You love me.” I speak the truth she’s too scared to admit. It’s as clear to me as the sky is blue. I press my hand against the back of hers.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she shakes her head. When she opens them again, they shine. “I can’t. It’ll kill me.”
“You love me, Caiti,” I repeat, praying the words sink in. “You love me like Ophelia loves me.”
A startled laugh bursts free, followed immediately by a sob. “It hurts to love you.”
The monitor on my finger picks up my increasing heart rhythm. “It’s supposed to hurt a little bit. That’s how you know you’re doing love right.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
I pull her hand from my chest. The warmth remains like a brand. I bring her hand to my lips and kiss each individual fingertip. “I can’t promise you never will. But I can promise I’ll make the time we spend together worth it.”
She seems to think for a minute. The ambulance slows as we near our destination.
“I think I’ve known that I’ve loved you for a while, but I’ve been too scared to admit it.”
“I know,” I tell her honestly. “I loved you enough to wait until you were ready to say it.”
Caiti cracks a smile. “Oh really? You seemed pretty insistent right now.”
“Because,” I begin, bringing her hand to cradle my cheek, “the only thing I thought about in that water was getting to tell you I loved you just one more time. I thought maybe, like me, you wouldn’t want to waste another minute, but you just needed a little nudge in the right direction.”
Keeping her one hand in place, she strokes over my still damp hair and down the other side of my face to hold me steady in her palms. “I love you, Dane Blackwood.”
“If it takes a near-death experience to finally hear you say that, I’ll have to plan tomorrow’s excursion.”
“Too soon for jokes,” she mutters, her eyes dropping to my lips a second before she leans in. She suffuses me in warmth with a simple kiss. The braking vehicle prompts her to pull away.
“I love you too, Caiti Harris.”
And if I have my way, she’ll be Caiti Blackwood within the year.
