The Protector (46 page)

Rolling his eyes at the General’s heavy-handedness, the doctor nonetheless turned to do his bidding.
Eryn
pulled back to send her father a questioning look. He squeezed her shoulder, enjoining her to keep quiet until the doctor disappeared.

“Daddy, what are you planning?” she whispered.

He looked down with a twinkle in his eyes. “I have an idea,” he admitted, “and I don’t want to hear any protests.”

“What kind of idea?”
 

“Trust me, it’s the best thing for both of you,” he said. Pulling her closer, he whispered his idea into her ear.

Eryn
gasped. “That’s awful! We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”
Her father didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “The doctor said he was responsive. If he doesn’t want to do it, he’ll find a way to say no.”

“And how humiliating will that be?” she cried.
 

Stanley’s mouth split into a grin. “Not at all,” he promised, “because I know that boy,
Eryn
. He’ll marry you in a heartbeat.”
 

It took twenty minutes to persuade the Marine Corps chaplain to do the honors, in secret without the doctor’s knowledge. Stanley’s threat to make or break his career had ultimately ensured the man’s cooperation.

“Who’ll sign the register?” asked the chaplain in a final bid to escape the plot.

Stanley waved a piece of paper under his nose. “Calhoun named me his agent when he rejoined the military. If he can’t sign it, I will.”

With a grimace of resignation, the balding chaplain escorted them down the hall toward ICU. Peeking around a corner, he waited for a doctor to disappear into surgery before darting across the hall and waving them furtively through a closed door.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered, leaving them alone.

Eryn
looked around. They stood in a gently lit room jammed with instruments and monitors that bleeped and whirred and pulsed. A blanketed figure lay strapped to a gurney surrounded by half a dozen instruments attached to him via wires and tubes.
Ike?
His neck was encased in a thick brace.
 

She willed her weak knees to carry her closer. Shock had her clutching the cold metal railing as she realized how much of him was swathed in white gauze. Looking past the bandages and the tubes conveying oxygen to his nostrils, she recognized the firm contours of his mouth and jaw, so dearly familiar that a sob escaped her throat. Oh, Ike!

She bent over him, assailed by a sweet, medicinal odor that smelled alien on him. The un-bandaged portion of his face was red and swollen, his eye blackened, but thankfully not disfigured. Lowering her mouth to his one good ear, she murmured to him. “Ike, honey, it’s
Eryn
. I’m here. I came to be with you.”
  

His lashes flickered, but his eyes remained shut.

That’s responsive?
Reaching for the hand that lay atop the blankets, she laced her fingers through his and was reassured by his warmth. “Can you hear me, Ike?”

There was no mistaking the slow curling of his fingers. Tears flooded
Eryn’s
eyes. She looked up at her father, who now stood at the foot of the bed. “He heard me.” Then she bent over Ike again. “You’re going to be okay, love. You’re going to make it.” He
had
to. Fifty-fifty odds were nothing for a man like Ike, a man who’d defied the odds from the day he graduated SEAL training.
 

“Ask him,” Stanley prompted, glancing at the door. “We don’t have much time.”
 

Eryn
hesitated. She wasn’t comfortable with forcing marriage down Ike’s throat. What if he didn’t want to marry her? After all, he’d chosen returning to the service over staying with her. What made her think he felt differently now?

On the other hand, she’d be sick if she were told to get away from him now and to stay away till he was out of ICU. “Ike, honey, I need to ask you a favor,” she began, speaking slowly and clearly in his ear. “Dad and I aren’t allowed to be here. Only family can come in. But Dad suggested...that if you and I got married, here and now, then we could stay and visit you till you’re all better.”

She searched his impassive face for any sign of panic or revulsion. “I never thought I’d be the one to do this, but...would you marry me, Ike? I understand if you don’t want to, but things have changed with you being injured and all. So, tell me by squeezing my hand, okay? One squeeze means, yes; two means—”
 

He squeezed her hand, once, so quickly she had to wonder if he understood what she was asking.

“What’d he say?” her father demanded.
  

“He squeezed once. I think he said yes. Was that a yes, Ike?”

He squeezed her hand again, harder, slower. That was definitely a yes. Her heart tripled in size. She laughed out loud, half joyous, half scared.
 

The door squeaked open, curtailing her outburst. To her relief, it was just the chaplain, slipping into the room with two nurses, one of whom set a vase of daisies on Ike’s beside table. “We’re the witnesses,” she explained with a conspiratorial smile.

“Let’s get this over with,” said the chaplain, who was visibly sweating. He cracked open a liturgical book and started reading. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the presence of friends and family...”

Suddenly, Ike’s eyes opened.
Eryn
gave a startled cry, and the chaplain paused before continuing the rite at double the cadence. His words seemed to fade into the distance as
Eryn
leaned over, trying to catch Ike’s eye, only his gaze remained fixed and staring.
 

Suddenly, the chaplain was addressing her. “Will you,
Eryn
McClellan, take this man to be your husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, from this day forward, for as long as you both shall live?”

Never had that familiar, lengthy question seemed so loaded. Ike’s chances for survival were grim. He was in danger of slipping into a coma. His injuries might well leave him cognitively impaired. And here she was linking her future with his. Was she crazy? Then again, was any bride ever guaranteed happily ever after? No. Not one.

But she could guarantee him unconditional love, something Ike had probably never experienced, not even as a boy. Whether his life lasted just hours or for decades, she would love him with all her heart.
 

“I will,” she said with conviction. One of the nurses sniffled.
   

Just then, the door swung open and they all swiveled in alarm. There stood the doctor, bristling with indignation. “What the
hell
is going on in here?” he demanded.
 

The chaplain’s face turned seven shades of red. Ignoring the interruption, he plowed forward with the service. “And will you, Isaac Calhoun, take this woman to be your wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, from this day forward, for as long as you both shall live?”

All eyes flew to Ike’s hand while Ike stared fixedly at the ceiling.
 

“This is absurd. The patient can’t speak!” shouted the doctor.

“Wait,” implored one of the nurses.

The only sounds were that of the heart monitor racing at a strong, steady trot, the oxygen machine whirring, and the muted lights overhead buzzing quietly. With the breath locked in her lungs,
Eryn
waited for Ike’s tanned, powerful hand to signal his decision.
 

Come on, Ike. Say yes. Let me be here for you.

At last, he enclosed her fingers in a sure, powerful grip that showed no sign of easing up, ever.

“That’s a yes!” her father announced, shooting a triumphant grin at the speechless, outraged doctor.

“Then, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I declare you both husband and wife!” the chaplain finished quickly, making a sign of the cross in the air.
 

The nurses turned and hugged each other. General McClellan went to sign the marriage register on Ike’s behalf. The doctor threw up his hands and left without another word.

Eryn’s
misty gaze remained fixed on her new husband. She longed to seal their union with a kiss. Ignoring the tubes that snaked into his nose, she dropped a light kiss on his lips, encountering gauze and a hint of facial hair. Carrying their linked hands to her lips, she kissed his knuckles. Slowly, one finger at a time, his fist unfurled. He seemed to be reaching for something. She put his palm to her cheek and his hand grew still, wetted by her tears.
  

From the moment his possessive gaze first landed on her, she’d been his. She would remain his for as long as they lived.

“You have to live for me, Ike,” she told him quietly. “Live for me.”

A bead of moisture escaped the corner of his eye and ran into his bandage. She knew he’d heard her. She knew he’d fight to pull through.

Epilogue

Eryn
sat up taller in the driver’s seat. “I can’t believe we’re here,” she breathed, nosing Ike’s Durango between the brick pillars and onto the driveway leading straight up to their mountain getaway. Theirs, that was, if he didn’t annul their marriage.

In the back of the Durango, delivered from Little Creek Amphibious Base by a teammate, Winston whined, echoing her excitement.
 

Need to shift into four-wheel drive,” Ike
instructed,
a small smile on his lips.

“Like this?” she asked, doing what she’d watched him do a couple of times last year.

“That’s it.”

Not only had Ike cheated death, coming out of ICU the day after their marriage, but four months of cognitive rehab in Bethesda had left him practically as good as new. He still got headaches sometimes; his back was scarred by burns; his limbs flecked with shrapnel scars. He hadn’t been cleared to drive yet, but for a man whose odds had been fifty-fifty, he looked pretty darn good to her.

They had spent every evening of those four months getting to know each other better. From what
Eryn
could see
,
Ike had come a long way from the grim, silent man who’d played her protector last year. He seemed at peace with himself. But he still kept so much inside him that she had no idea if he was content to be married to her, or not.

The future of his career was equally uncertain. Ike’s hearing loss, which was a result of the explosion, meant that he was being medically discharged from the Teams. But Homeland Security had approached him with an offer to head up a new counterterrorist taskforce. He seemed excited by the job offer, which would have him working out of D.C.
 

Still, he’d been so eager to escape to the mountains upon his release from the hospital that she had to wonder if he’d be content living in the city. After all, he had declined to recuperate in her townhouse, even though her father had finally moved out. Maybe he didn’t want to consummate their marriage vows—unspoken vows, on his part.

The fact remained that nothing held Ike to her but a scrap of paper signed by her father, who’d served as Ike’s agent.
  

She gunned the accelerator in private panic.

“Slow and easy,” Ike soothed.
 

The driveway sported several new gullies where melting snows had washed away the gravel. The Durango jiggled through them.