Cut Throat (34 page)

“No. I’ve learned a long time ago that, for a lot of people, tomorrow never comes.”

Nineteen

Cat had been there all night. She’d been in the hallway when they’d brought him to his room. She’d sat by his bedside through every shift change, through all the nurses’ visits, watching them taking his blood pressure, readjusting drips and injecting pain meds into his IV. Everything that was said about him, or done to him, she was there. Finally, when the hustle of settling in a new patient had subsided, they were alone.

She moved to the bed, then laid her hand on his arm.

“Wilson, it’s me, Cat. Somewhere in there, I hope you can hear me, because there’s something I need to tell you.”

She paused, watching his face. Except for the slight rise and fall of his chest and the steady beep of the heart monitor, she would have thought he was dead. She moved her hand a little farther up his arm, feeling the tone of his muscles, remembering his strength, remembering all the times he’d held her and she’d shoved him away, and she wanted to weep. She leaned down until her lips were only inches away from his ear and then spoke, clearly and distinctly, so there was no danger of misunderstanding.

“I love you, Wilson.” Her voice shook, but she kept on talking. “Do you hear me? I love you. You are my heart. You are the reason I wake up happy, and the reason I sleep without nightmares. Rest well, my darling, and know that I am here.”

Then she kissed the side of his face and briefly touched her forehead to his before pulling back. She’d said them, the all-powerful, all-terrifying words that now seemed so easy. If only he had been able to hear them.

Along about midnight, Carter and Dorothy arrived. They walked into his room, saw Cat and immediately went to her.

Dorothy’s face crumpled as she threw her arms around Cat and wept. “Catherine…oh, Catherine…how could this happen?”

A muscle jerked in the side of Cat’s jaw as she hugged Dorothy back. “It’s the business,” she muttered. “The miserable business of bailing crooks out of jail.”

Carter hugged her; then he and Dorothy moved to Wilson’s bedside.

Cat backed away, giving them some space. She kept watching Wilson’s face, searching for a sign that he knew they were there, that he was aware of how much he was loved. But just like before, there was no sign that he’d heard.

They’d been there for less than five minutes when she heard a distinct skip in the pattern of his heartbeat.

Breath froze in the back of her throat as she bolted toward the bed and reached for his wrist. His pulse was slow and thready. The beep skipped again, then sounded twice in rapid succession.

Cat reached for the call button just as the monitor flatlined. There was a brief moment when she felt and saw and heard everything around her in slow motion.

The shock on Carter’s face.

The shriek from Dorothy’s lips. The immobility of Wilson’s body. The life that was no longer there.

Cat grabbed his wrist, as if holding on to his physical being could keep him with her.

“Wilson!” Her scream was shattering, her body shaking with fear and rage. “Don’t you do this!” she cried, as she threw herself across his body, trying to hold his soul to earth. “Don’t do this…don’t do this…don’t you dare die on me, too!”

She heard herself screaming, but it didn’t change a thing.

Wilson’s heart had stopped beating. Someone pulled her off the bed and shoved her aside.

She stood against the wall as her own heartbeat began to skip. A doctor was shouting orders faster than the nurses could obey them.

Dorothy was weeping. Carter’s face was frozen in a grimace of disbelief. It was a nightmare, but without the relief of an awakening. Everything that was happening was happening now, and too fast for Cat to take in.

The doctor suddenly shouted the word “Clear!” The nurses lifted their hands from the bed just as the doctor slapped two paddles onto Wilson’s chest and hit the trigger. Wilson jerked as if the bed had been jostled, but the flat line still registered. “Clear!” the doctor shouted again, and

again Wilson’s heart was zapped. Nothing.

Everything within Cat’s vision tunneled down to the man lying on the bed. She stared at the flat line on the monitor until her vision blurred, then she screamed, her voice raw and shaking with rage.

“Wilson! Don’t you go and die on me, too, goddamn it! You can’t do that! Do you hear me? Don’t you dare go and do that to me!”

The doctor was incensed.

“Get her out of here!” he shouted.

Cat was sobbing, deep, ugly sobs that burned the back of her throat, but she knew enough to know that she wasn’t being moved anywhere. She glared at the doctor, then grabbed the foot of Wilson’s bed.

“I’m not going anywhere, and neither is he!” she sobbed.

Before anyone could move to do his bidding, there was a beep on the heart monitor, then a second, then another, until the heartbeat was registering once again at a normal rhythm.

The doctor’s eyes widened as he stared at the monitor, then back at Cat Dupree.

“Well, lady…looks like he heard you loud and clear,” he muttered, then

began a quick assessment of Wilson’s vitals.

Once he was satisfied that the crisis had passed, he issued a few new orders to the nurse, then looked at Cat.

“Is he going to be okay?” Cat asked.

“It appears so,” he said, then put a hand on her shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, felt the disapproval in her body at being touched, and left.

Dorothy and Carter moved to stand beside Cat; then, without speaking, both put their arms around her and just held her. Long minutes passed as they stood in silence, watching the steady rhythm of Wilson’s heartbeat being registered on the monitor.

Then something began to change. Wilson’s eyelids fluttered once. Cat saw them and quickly moved to his side.

“Wilson, I’m here,” she said.

Wilson inhaled slowly; then Cat saw him trying to lick his lips. She grabbed a washcloth, wet it at the sink, then went back to his bedside and dabbed it along his mouth.

“Your mother is here, honey, and so is your dad. You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me? You’re going to be okay.”

Wilson’s eyelids opened slowly. Cat could see that it was taking him a few moments to focus, but when he saw her face, she knew he recognized her.

“Hey, you,” she said softly. “It’s me. Cat.”

He blinked once, then closed his eyes as the medicine began pulling him back under. He fought the feeling, knowing there was something he’d come back to tell her. He could feel her hands on his face and the nubby texture of the wet washcloth against his lips. He took another breath, willing himself to talk before he passed out again, knowing that she needed to hear what he had to say.

“Catherine.”

Cat gasped, then leaned down. “I’m here, Wilson. I’m here.” “I hur oo.”

His voice was so soft, and his speech so tangled from the drugs in his system, that Cat couldn’t understand what he’d said.

“What, honey? What did you say?” she asked.

Wilson felt her hand against the curve of his cheek and leaned into it, taking his strength from her, and repeated his words.

“I heard your call,” he said. “I came back…for you.”

The jolt from his words rocked Cat to the core. She leaned down and

kissed the side of his face. When she stood up, she staggered.

Carter caught her and promptly sat her down in a chair, with orders to stay there.

Cat nodded without taking her gaze from Wilson’s face. He’d come back to her, and, God willing, he would get well and they would live happily ever after, just like in the movies. Of course, that would be right after she saw Jimmy Houston drawn and quartered.

Then they would live happily ever after, but not before. image

ISBN: 978-1-4268-0782-4 CUT THROAT

Copyright © 2007 by Sharon Sala.

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