From the Start (38 page)

But before she could finish the word, a form leapt into the road in front of them. A deer?

Kate’s scream collided with the sound of skidding gravel as Colton swerved, only to see another car approaching—its headlights barreling toward Kate’s door.

Please, God. Please, please . . .
no.

And then the impact.

17

C
olton, we need to take some X-rays, see what we’ve got going on. It’s your knee I’m most concerned about.”

“Well, I’m not. I told you, it’s an old injury.”

The doctor’s skeptical expression was focused on the jagged white scar over his kneecap. “Not that old.”

Colton couldn’t handle just sitting here anymore. It was bad enough they’d made him ride to the hospital separately from Kate. He’d stood there on that back road, numb and helpless, watching the ambulance race away, its wailing siren like an echo of his fear.

“It could’ve been so much worse.”
The police officer’s words hadn’t come close to calming him.
“The other driver is okay. And Kate’s injuries don’t appear to be life threatening.”

Had he
seen
her? Unconscious. Bloody. That protruding bone in her arm . . .

Colton had flinched, had to steady himself against what was left of Kate’s car.

“We need to get you to
the hospital.”

“Case. I have to call Case and
Raegan—”

“He’s already been called. Emergency Management is
helping them get across the river. I need you to
come with me.”

Colton now slid from the paper-covered table, the small patient room in the ER suddenly claustrophobic. The second his weight hit his legs, though, he couldn’t hide his wince. Pain
shot up from his knee, sharp as the glass shards the nurse had picked from his forehead only minutes ago.

But he didn’t care about any of that. “I need to know how Kate is.” He reached down to unroll his pant leg, trapped dirt now dusting to the floor.

“I told you, as soon as we have information—”

“I should be out in the waiting area when her dad gets here.”

“He just got here,” the nurse who’d reentered the room only seconds ago interjected softly.

“Colton, I don’t—”

He ignored the doctor, ignored the pangs going off like firecrackers throughout his body, and limped to the door. Fluorescent lights glared from overhead as he followed the blue stripe on the wall toward the ER’s waiting area.

He heard Case’s voice before he saw him. “Katharine Walker. She was in a car accident.”

“Oh yes, she’s back—”

“Colton!” Raegan called the second she saw him, hurrying over to him, eyes betraying her dismay at the sight of him. He hadn’t looked in a mirror, but he could guess how he appeared. Oxford unbuttoned—both it and the white shirt underneath stained with dirt and blood. Scrapes over his forehead where windshield glass had embedded itself. “Where’s Kate? How is she? How are you?”

Case was at his side now, too, more concern than Colton deserved playing over his face.

“I don’t know. They made me ride separately and took me to a room as soon as I got here. I keep asking—”

“Colton.” The doctor’s voice, his footsteps approaching from behind.

Colton’s irritation expanded as he whirled around. “I told you, I’m not doing X-rays or anything else until we get some information on Kate.”

Case stepped forward. “Dr. Woodard, good, I was hoping you’d be on duty tonight. How’s my daughter?”

Of course Case knew the doctor. Probably knew most of the staff. Maybe his influence would gain them the update Colton’s pushing hadn’t.

But Dr. Woodard only shook his head. “I’m sorry, she’s back with Dr. Morris now. I don’t have an update yet, but I can go back and find out what’s happening.” He slid a chastising glance at Colton. “And in the meantime, if you can talk this one into letting us tend to him, that’d be good. His knee isn’t okay, no matter what he tells you.”

The doctor turned, white coat flapping behind him. And from across the room, the sound of a revolving door’s whir ushered in more hurried footsteps. Seth, Ava . . . even Bear.

“How is she?”

Colton couldn’t make out who asked the question. It was all he could do to stay upright, the numb rush of the past hour finally wearing off and leaving in its place such a revulsion he thought he might throw up.

But then Case’s hand landed on his shoulder—not the bad one—a steadying presence. “What happened, son?”

Raegan was talking to the others, explaining that they were waiting for an update.

“I . . . we . . .” He gulped in a ragged breath. “We were just driving, talking. And then I . . . there was a train.” It tightened his lungs all over again, the memory. “I had a flashback. I get them sometimes.”

But never like he had tonight.

“And then I turned the car around and next thing I knew there was a deer and another car and we hit.”

Oh, God, what did I do?
If he’d just taken her back to Megan’s.

“It’s my fault.” He could feel the eyes of everyone on him now.
Kate’s dad and sister and cousin and friends and . . . “Logan. I should call Logan and Beckett. They—”

“We’ve already done that, Colton.” Case spoke gently. “And no more talk of it being your fault. From the sounds of it, it was a deer. Those things cause more accidents . . .” He squeezed Colton’s shoulder.

Colton didn’t argue. Not out loud anyway. But he knew.

He’d been the one to insist they keep driving.

He’d been the one to pick then, of all times, to suddenly fully remember something he’d blocked out for twenty years.

He’d been the one to swerve the car back toward town, faster than he should . . .

It
was
his fault. And if Kate wasn’t okay, he didn’t know what he’d do.

“We should sit down.” Raegan’s tone was soft. “And you should get that knee looked at.”

“Not until we know about Kate.”

“Okay, good, this must be Kate’s crew.”

Colton spun, everybody bunching around him as a doctor appeared from around the corner.

“Dr. Morris?” Case stepped forward, hand outstretched.

The doctor shook his hand. “The good news is, she’s going to be fine. She’s going to walk again. Everything’s fixable.”

Colton could feel the whole group let out a collective breath.

“You say she’s going to walk
again
,” Case said. “That means she’s not going to for . . .”

The doctor nodded in confirmation. “For a while. Her right arm was a clean break. We’ve already set it and it’s almost done getting casted. Her right leg is a different story. She’s going to need surgery, and I want to send her to Ames for that. So it’ll be a while before she’s up and about. Probably take some physical therapy for a few months after, but again, nothing we can’t fix.”

Months.
What about Africa?

“I can give you more information on the surgery and how we’d like to move forward, but first I thought you might want to see her. She’s also got a couple cracked ribs, so no tight hugs.”

Relief fanned through their little group, but Colton couldn’t grab hold of it. Broken arm, broken leg, cracked ribs. Kate . . . his Kate.

Not my Kate.

Not anymore.

“Of course, we want to see her,” Raegan was saying now, her hand encased in Bear’s. “Can we all go back?”

Dr. Morris smiled. How could he look so relaxed after the news he’d just delivered? “I think so. For a few minutes anyway.”

The group began moving forward. Not Colton.

Case turned. “Colt?”

“You guys go on. I’m going to . . .” He closed his eyes. Opened them again. “I’ll go get those X-rays.”

“She’ll want to see you.”

“She’s not going to be able to go to Africa, Case. You heard what the doctor said. She’s going to be in PT for months.” She’d already put her life on hold for a month, just so she could write his book—and then he’d gone and told her he was thinking of calling it quits. Now he wrecked the one thing she’d wanted more than anything? “I ruined it for her.”

“You don’t know that, son. Maybe the foundation will be able to postpone her trip. Maybe she’ll recover faster than the doctor expects.”

The rest of the group disappeared around the corner. “You should go.”

“And you should come with.” Case’s voice hit a firm tone. But when Colton only shook his head, the older man finally sighed. “Well, okay. Then come back after your X-rays.”

Colton nodded. But as soon as Case hurried out of sight, he turned and hobbled to the exit.

“I. Love. Pain-killers.”

Everyone in the room burst into laughter at Kate’s declaration.

“What? If you had four broken bones—well, two broken, two cracked—not to mention enough glass removed from your skin to make a stained-glass window, you’d thank the Lord for modern medicine, too.”

Raegan ran a brush through Kate’s hair as she perched on the side of the hospital bed. “What I’m thanking the Lord for is that somehow you’re cracking jokes just hours after a car accident.”

Had to be the medicine.

Or maybe honest-to-goodness thankfulness. She was alive. Tonight could’ve ended so differently.

And now she was surrounded by family who’d left her room only long enough to buy flowers and balloons in the hospital gift shop, buy her every flavor of M&M’s from the vending machine, and find her a jacket to put on over her dress until Seth and Ava got back from the house with clean clothes. Apparently they were getting a ride in the same Emergency Management boat that had delivered Dad and Raegan across the river.

If only Colton would walk through the glass door leading into her room. Where was he? She’d asked about him earlier. Dad said something about X-rays. But that was over an hour ago.

Dad was the only one who hadn’t left her room even once. He watched her now from the vinyl chair he’d pulled to her bedside.

“I’m okay, Dad.”

He had the same haggard look he’d had when she first came home weeks ago.

He leaned forward to grasp her fingers, extending from a gleaming white cast. “Of course, you are.”

In the corner of her room, Bear held up her phone. “Megan texted back. ‘WHAT?’ That’s in all-caps. ‘Glad you’re okay. Idiot deer. How’s that guy?’ I assume she means Colton?”

She wished she knew how Colton was. Dad said he didn’t have serious injuries, but . . .

But they hadn’t seen him in the car. Physically he might be fine. But something had happened tonight. The need to see him now coursed through her, overwhelmingly strong.

Pain-killers couldn’t help with that.

“Can you text her back and let her know he’s okay?”

Raegan finished brushing her hair and stood. “I’ll go look for him, okay? He has to be done with the X-rays by now.”

Her sister read her well.

Bear accompanied Raegan out the door, leaving Kate alone with Dad. Bobbing balloons filled the counter behind him. And behind that, a narrow window peeked on the black night. How late was it now? Had to be close to midnight, surely.

“So Dr. Morris filled you in on the surgery and everything?”

Dad nodded. “I’m afraid you’ve got somewhat of a long road in front of you, Katie.”

“I know.” She shifted on the stark white sheets of the hospital bed, her propped leg making any kind of comfortable position impossible and the cast weighing her right arm. “And the road definitely does not lead to Africa.”

She’d known it before the doctor even started talking surgery and physical therapy. A feeling. She’d probably feel the disappointment more keenly tomorrow or next week or whenever the shock of all that’d happened tonight wore off. It’d sink in, eventually, that the open door she’d been so sure was from God had been so swiftly and forcefully closed.

But tonight . . . tonight she couldn’t bring herself to think past her next conversation with Colton. If he’d just show up.

“You talked to Colton when you first got here, right? He told you everything that happened?” She licked her dry lips.

Dad lifted a glass of water from the bedside stand, held it for her while she sipped from the straw. “He told me what happened. In very monosyllabic terms, that is. He said something about a flashback.”