Summer by Summer (29 page)

And I watched as blood from the man I loved pooled in the bottom of the rescue helicopter.

The nurse paused at my bed. This was the third time she’d come in. “Please,” I said through a raspy throat. “Is Bray okay?”

“I’m not authorized to release any information.” Her English was broken, but understandable. She patted my hand. “I’m sure someone will be in very soon.”

I gripped her hand. The force must have surprised her. Her eyes widened, and her gaze dropped to our clenched hands. “Please. Just tell me he’s alive.”

She swallowed, stared at the door a few seconds, and leaned closer. “He’s in surgery.”

Bray was alive. My heart nearly erupted through my ribs. He was alive and we were back on mainland Belize. I released her hand, and she clutched it to her chest. I’d hurt her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how hard I grabbed you.”

Her brows rose. “You’re strong.”

Yeah. Thanks to the island. That’s when I noticed my rope ring was gone. “My ring!”

“The rope? It’s in your side table drawer. I scrubbed it for you.”

Oh. It would have been covered in blood. I didn’t remember them taking it off of me, but the whole morning was a blur. I reached to the drawer. “Please, can I have it back?”

She drew it out and handed it to me, then said, “Don’t you dare tell them I told you about Bray.”

I cast a glance to the door and nodded.

“Sleep if you can. Someone will be in soon.”

The door swung open, causing us both to start. A man, round-faced and with a belly that pushed hard against the bulging buttons of his shirt, stepped inside. “Can she talk?”

I answered for myself. “Yes.”

The nurse shot me a glance, and I knew this man had the answers to what happened. I leaned up on the pillow. “Is Bray okay?”

He cleared his throat, stepped closer, and looked at me from head to toe, as if gauging something.

“Sir, please.”

He sniffed, causing his shoulders to rise and his shirt to groan under the pressure. I’d noticed he also spoke perfect English and looked as American as Bray and I. His eyes cut to the nurse. She hurried to finish and left the room.

“My name is Orlin MacAbee. What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room.”

I nodded.

“Maria Sosa is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife undercover agent. I’m a colleague of hers. Maria met Bray at the lake on Sovereign Island.”

The woman with the boat men was an undercover agent?

“Three years of hard work have gone into bringing down the trafficking ring the two of you encountered. She took a great risk letting us know you were there and alive.”

I remembered back to when the shots rang out. “Someone yelled the name Maria. She’d been shot.”

Orlin pulled a breath, and scrubbed at the scruff beneath his chin. “Yes.”

“She was there when they came to kill us this morning?” My mind tried to wrap around it. “She was with them?”

“Held at gunpoint. Your uh . . . incident blew her cover. She’d snuck off their boat and made a call to me. I contacted Bray’s family. After torturing her, then drugging her, they made her give up your location.”

It was getting hard to breathe. I splayed my hands flat on the sheet, fingers spread and trying to feel the solid surface beneath me. “How . . . how did we get here?”

“The helicopter. We swarmed the island just as Raul opened fire on you. We brought you straight to the hospital here.”

I hadn’t been shot. “Brought in the helicopter?” Why were the details so blurry? The frown on my face deepened.

“Yes in the helicopter. You were in shock. On another note, you two killed a croc on the island?”

I nodded, a little surprised by the change of conversation.

“With the croc dead, Maria’d lost her chance to meet the head of the organization. It was to be a gift for him. Three years down the drain.”

Okay, so was Orlin MacAbee just here to tell me how badly we’d messed things up? “Look, it was the croc or us. We didn’t have a real choice. Is Maria okay?”

“She’ll live.” He stared down at me like this whole thing was my fault.

“I’m sorry about what happened to her. About your investigation.”

I focused tightly on his small round eyes and watched them change. Disapproval turned to empathy. Mechanical equipment hummed around us, hospital machines whirred — I’d never noticed them before.

Orlin reached out and patted my hand. “No, I should apologize. You were just trying to survive. Glad you two made it.”

“Who shot Bray?”

“A man named Raul. He also shot Maria. I expect them both to make a good recovery.”

I let out some of the tension that had settled in my lungs, my heart. Eyes closed, I focused on those words. A good recovery. But with my eyes squeezed shut, all I could see was Bray, the horror on his face, him diving on top of me. The feeling that he was gone, dying, bleeding out as I tried to hold him together.

He’s alive
. I said the words over and over in my head, praying they would take root, but each time I tried, there he was, bleeding, dying.

“I’ll leave you to get some rest. No word of any of this, okay Summer?”

They’d hooked me up to an IV, though I wasn’t injured. Fluid drained into my system. I toyed with the tube. “Yes sir.”

“We’ll be in touch. Until then, no one except the Garrisons will be allowed in. If you leave the room, you don’t go alone.”

A tremor ran the length of my spine. Was I still in danger? Then I remembered the armed guard just outside my door.

MacAbee left, but I couldn’t sleep. Not with this living nightmare running through my head and not until I knew Bray was out of surgery. But my eyes grew heavy, and I wondered if they’d slipped some medication into the IV. The room grayed around me, sounds muffled and grew farther and farther away.

I woke to commotion.

Markus and Sandra stood at the foot of my bed and little Joshie ran to me from the door, arms out and a smile as big as Texas on his face. “Joshie!” I gasped and pulled him to me in a bear hug.

Sandra pitched forward. “Oh, Josh, don’t hurt her. She’s been through a lot.”

“I’m fine,” I said and held him so close. I closed my eyes and tucked my head into his hair, breathing in the life and light that was Joshie. He smelled like strawberry shampoo and little boy sweat, and it was such an amazing scent that all I could do was hold him.

With tears in her eyes, Sandra came around the bed and dropped beside me. She pulled me into a hug, and before I knew what was happening, all four of us were tangled up there on the bed, crying tears of joy and laughing between the sobs.

I pushed back. “Is Bray going to be okay?”

She nodded. “He came through surgery like a champ. The bullet nicked a vein. He lost some blood, but he’s going to be fine.”

Some
blood. That was an understatement. My head fell back against the pillow and I closed my eyes. Bray was going to be okay.

“Now, what can we get for you?”

“I’d like to talk to my mom and dad.”

“Can’t.” Markus grinned. “They’re on a plane right now.”

“They’re coming here?”

Markus stood beside his wife. “They’re coming
back
here. They were here for the first two weeks after you disappeared. Your dad had to return home for work. Your mom went with him. She was planning to come back next week.”

“Summer, we’re so sorry this happened to you.” Sandra let go of Markus and took my hand in both of hers. I wondered if things had changed between them.

Joshie curled into a ball on my lap. I was the link to his big
brother. He nuzzled deeper. He probably hadn’t seen Bray yet, so I was getting all the love. I hugged him hard. This was my family now.

I toyed with the rope ring on my finger. It now sported a pink tinge. I’d wait for Bray before saying anything about it.

A doctor slid the door open and addressed the Garrisons. “Bray is out of recovery and awake. He’d like to see you.” The three moved away from my bed and the world felt a little colder.

The doctor turned his attention to me. “I’ll get a nurse in here to remove that IV, and as soon as she does, we’ll walk you over to see him too.”

But it was too late. I grabbed the needle and ripped it from my arm. Blood came out in a quick spurt, causing Sandra to gasp and Joshie to yell, “Ewww, gross!”

Markus grabbed a washcloth from the sink nearby and pressed it to my arm. He turned to the doctor. “Guess there’s no reason to leave her behind now. Come on, Summer. You can lean on me.”

I didn’t need to lean on anyone. I was strong. What I lacked before going to the island, I’d gained while there. I’d killed a crocodile. I’d climbed a mountain to get water. I’d let go of my dead boyfriend and found love.

I was Summer Mathers. And soon I’d be Summer Garrison. Life had been hard up to this point, but now it was going to be perfect.

We entered Bray’s room as silently as possible for four people so excited they buzzed like a lightning storm. As soon as Sandra saw her son, the tears started. I didn’t think he looked too bad, but they hadn’t seen him in over three weeks. Markus tucked his wife beneath his arm the same way Bray had tucked me so many times when I needed shoring up. He gave her the strength to make it to the bed. Joshie stood back too, so I slid my hand in his and coaxed him forward.

Markus touched Bray’s hand.

His eyes drifted open. A slow smile spread across his face. “Hey, I missed you guys.”

Sandra dropped carefully on his bed and hugged him. His arm, still trapped by the IV, came up around his mom. Markus bent and kissed the top of his head. “We missed you too, son,” he said, and I had to fight tears because it was hard to see a man like Markus, so strong, so in control, crumbling at the sight of Bray.

They were careful not to touch his stomach. “Where’s Summer?” The rasp in his voice disappeared.

“I’m here.”

He blinked then found me at the door. From across the room, our eyes locked, and I knew that everything — Bray included — was going to be just fine. I held Joshie’s hand out in front of me. “Go see your brother.”

He’d been squeezing harder and harder, little boy nerves all jangled. He undoubtedly didn’t like seeing his big brother — his larger-than-life hero — weak and confined to a hospital bed.

“Yeah, come on Joshie.” Bray patted a spot by him on the bed.

A nurse entered the room, passed by us, and busied herself checking monitors. “He just received pain meds, so he’ll be out soon. He needs to rest.”

“We won’t stay long,” Markus told her.

Josh walked toward his brother. Bray winked at me. His gaze dropped to my arm where I held a washrag in the crook of my elbow. “Summer, what happened?”

I glanced down at it, but it was Markus who answered. “They weren’t going to let her come over to see you, so she ripped the IV out of her arm.”

“Come here, you.” Bray motioned for me. I swallowed. Joshie wasn’t the only one who idolized him. My knees were weak, but I could do it. Go over and let him hug me or maybe just squeeze my hand. He was like that, always needing to touch me. But as I
took the first step, everything that had happened welled up, pressing against my heart.

“What were you thinking? You could have died and I never would have forgiven you.” I wiped a smear of tears from my face and closed the distance to his bed. “I still might not.” No one in the room seemed surprised by my hysteria. Except me, of course. I wiped another smear, and then folded my arms.

Bray chuckled, grabbed my hand and leaned back into his pillow. “Yeah, that’s my wildcat. Your arm?” He pointed to the cloth.

“It’s fine,” I added, embarrassed. “Not even bleeding anymore.”

Joshie turned to look at me. “Can I see?”

“Later.” Markus reached to touch his son’s leg, but Bray’s eyes were growing heavy and he had to use more and more force to hold them open. “We never gave up on you, Bray. None of us. Especially Katie.”

His eyes closed, but he mumbled, “Who’s Katie?”

Both Markus and Sandra laughed. And I felt oddly out of the loop. Who was Katie? I didn’t remember Bray ever mentioning someone by that name. A cousin maybe?

It didn’t matter. We were home and we were safe. And we belonged to each other.

Bray fell into a deep sleep, so we left the room. Sandra turned to me. “Would you like to go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat? Mr. MacAbee said that would be okay.”

I’d really hoped to have my first meal back with Bray, but the thought of real food was irresistible. “Yes.” What else did they know? I decided not to discuss it, since MacAbee told me not to.

We traversed the hall and passed the armed guard. After we were inside my hospital room, Markus nodded toward the guy. “He’ll probably follow us down. But that’s okay. Whatever we need to do to keep you both safe.”

Sandra grabbed an overnight bag from inside a small closet. “I
took the liberty of packing you a couple changes of clothes, Summer. I think it’s safe to say the ones you were in should be thrown away.”

I laughed, hardly believing we were there.

Sandra handed me the bag. “Everything you need. Even shampoo so you don’t have to use that horrible hospital stuff.”

Any shampoo was a blessing. Didn’t she know that? “Thank you. Thank you both for everything. I’ll be quick.”

“We’re going to speak with Bray’s doctor, so take your time, Summer,” Markus said.

“Yeah, you smell like feet,” Joshie added, and we both laughed.

“Josh!” Sandra brandished him with a look. “Actually, you smell like coconut.”

“Yeah.” Joshie’s face sparkled. “Coconut feet.”

“We’ll be back shortly to get you.”

I watched them leave, surprised by how much energy it zapped from me to have a conversation with all of them. It was like my body had gotten so used to it being just me and Bray that I didn’t know how to react to multiple people. I felt tired. The shower would help. I scrounged around in the bag to make sure I had everything I needed and my hand fell on something cool and hard in the bottom corner. I lifted it out. My favorite Bible. But I hadn’t brought it with me to Belize, just a small one. Tears stung my eyes. My parents must have brought it with them when they came. Slowly, I pulled it to my chest and thanked God for getting us off the island. I opened the cover and a piece of paper slipped out, landing silently on the floor. I opened the paper and my breath caught. It was from my dad.