To Love and Heal (The Power of Love Series) (13 page)

"Anna,"
he said hurriedly as he clasped her limp hand. 

"Do you know
her?" the nurse asked.  Caleb ignored the question and instead called
out her name again.

With determination
that far outweighed her small stature, the nurse pulled at the stretcher. 
"She's bleeding – we need to get her on board
now
!"

His chest
tightening, Caleb's eyes quickly scanned her body, freezing on a growing patch
of blood that was seeping through the upper inner portion of her white capri
pants.

He was going to
lose her … how could this be happening ….

Blurriness turned
to utter blackness, and breathing to a chokehold.  Slowly the blackness
faded, replaced by eerie plumes of smoke that twisted through the suffocating
air.  Caleb clutched a body in his arms, shielding it with his own.

"Dwayne, stay
with me – you have to hang on!"

Blood trickled
from the corner of the young soldier's mouth.  He peered up at Caleb, the
fear in his eyes relaxing into acceptance. "I'm sorry," he sputtered
weakly.

Caleb leaned over
closer as the chaos of competing gunfire unfolded around him. "No – you
are
not
going to die!  You have a baby on the way – you have to
hang in there!"

"Tell my wife
…" Dwayne choked as more blood spilled forth. 

"Don't try to
talk.  Let's just get you back on board–"

"Tell her I
love her … and … I'm so sorry to leave her. Tell her I'll be with her again one
day."

As the last word
left his mouth, Dwayne's head rolled to the side, his vacant eyes confirming
what Caleb dreaded to be true. Squeezing his own eyes shut, he drew the acrid
air into his lungs, coughing as it burned his throat.  Slowly he opened
his eyes, his heart surging at the sight of silky chestnut hair splayed across
his arms.  Anna peered up at him, her peaches and cream skin now gray with
approaching death.

"No,"
Caleb whispered.  "It can't be …" He turned behind to ascertain
that he was still on the Afghanistan battlefield.  The Super Stallion that
he had been just about to board before a bullet hit his helmet stood inches
behind him, a cold, metallic reminder of a sacrifice made on his behalf. 
He turned back to Anna's limp body in his arms, her glossy eyes half closed as
he leaned down and kissed her icy lips. As her faint breath mixed with his own,
he waited to connect with it once more … but it never came.  He screamed
inside of himself, wrapping his arms as tightly as he could around her lifeless
body, wishing that if he couldn't die in her place, then at least he would die
with her. 

But he was being
pulled away … drawn into a tunnel that lifted off the battlefield, a black and
silent vacuum that sucked him in whole.   When his vision and hearing
returned, it was with a thud, as though he had departed his body for an unknown
amount of time and had suddenly slammed back inside.

A contorted face
was mere inches from his, the volume jacked up full pitch. "What the hell
is wrong with you?" the paramedic angrily shouted.  "We have three
injured people on board who need to get to the hospital now!  Get in this
damn helicopter and let's get moving!"

Confusion set in
as Caleb tried to remember two other accident victims being loaded onto the
helicopter.  Did it happen while he was having a flashback?  His
inability to grasp at an answer set him drifting back into a place devoid of
sight or sound.  As he tried to fight the approaching darkness, he caught
a glimpse of Tina worriedly looking in his direction as she pulled a police
officer aside with her good arm. And then everything once again went black.

"Caleb …
Caleb, listen to me!"

He gasped as air
returned to his lungs, squinting as a shock of bright orange hair greeted his
returning vision.   As Tina's bruised face came into view, he looked
at the empty spot where Anna's cot had been moments ago.  Or was it
minutes ago?  He really couldn't be sure.

"You were
having some kind of flashback again," Tina said, although inwardly Caleb
begged to differ.  But telling her that he felt he might have actually
left his body didn't seem like an explanation that would go over much better.

"Caleb, I
know how hard this is, but you need to get a grip on things.  Please …
just … I don't know … you
have
to stay in the present. Anna and your
baby need your help.  You need to fly them to the hospital now – can you
do that?"

A sea of faces,
simultaneously somber and anxious, spilled around him as police and medical
personnel waited for him to return to pilot mode.  He felt the pull of
gravity on his body, as though the door to wherever he had drifted had now
slammed shut, the present becoming more and more real until he was fully
immersed in it.

"Let's
go!" he shouted as he climbed into the helicopter and started the
engine.  As the rotors picked up speed, he turned back to check on Anna,
who lay motionless on the cart while the nurse checked her vital signs. 
As he pulled up on the collective stick and the ground began to slip away, he
could only be certain of two things. He still loved Anna with all his heart. And
he hated himself more than ever for having let her go.

TWELVE

Anna slowly opened
her eyes, the hospital room gradually coming into focus as pain ran the gamut
of her entire body.  A nurse was injecting medication into an IV line,
unaware that Anna was now conscious. 

"Tina …"

Startled, the
nurse turned back and then smiled warmly.  "You're awake. How do you
feel?"

It took more
effort than Anna expected to muster up the strength to speak, but she pushed
through it.  "Like I was in a car that rolled over about a hundred
times."

"Hang in
there – this pain med should be kicking in soon."

"Is my friend
okay?" 

"The
driver?  Yes – she has a fractured wrist and some bruising, but everything
else checked out okay."

"Thank god
…"  Suddenly, Anna grabbed her stomach with her IV-free arm,
oblivious to the resulting pain that shot up her shoulder.  Dread took
hold as she observed the nurse's smile fade. "Oh, no …"

"Let me page
the doctor on call and let him know you're awake."

"The baby! Is
the baby okay?"

"I'll get the
doctor−"

"No – tell me
now. 
Please!
"

The nurse squeezed
Anna's hand.  "I'm so sorry."

Dazed, Anna slowly
shook her head.  "It can't be … there's a heartbeat …I saw the
ultrasound…" She paused as her throat closed up and her heart rate surged
on the monitor.

"Do you want
a sedative to help calm you?"

"No – please
just tell me what happened," Anna replied tearfully.

"You had a
miscarriage on the way here.  This sort of thing is unfortunately not
uncommon in an early pregnancy when there's major physical and emotional trauma
like a car accident."

Anna searched her
mind for even the slightest memory of how she arrived at the hospital. 
She could clearly recall the moments leading up to the crash, but everything
that came after was as murky as a dense swamp. And then suddenly …

Caleb!

Anna gasped as a
floodgate of memories spilled forward, the shock of it all prompting her to
jerk her body upward in the bed.  She ignored the pain, her thoughts as
twisted as the heap of metal that she had been pulled from on the
highway.  "He … I mean my … the father … he brought me here…"

"I think a
mild sedative might help you right now," the nurse said as she viewed the
fluctuating vital signs on the monitor.

"Is he still
here?"

"Who?"

"The man who
brought me here."

The nurse viewed
her with growing concern, no doubt wondering if a mild brain injury had gone
undetected and was causing her obvious confusion.  "You were flown in
by a medical airlift."

"That's him –
that's who I'm talking about!"

Now it was the
nurse's turn to appear befuddled.  "I'm sorry, I don't–"

"The pilot –
he's the father of my baby."

The nurse balked
with wide-eyed disbelief.  "The pilot?!"

Anna could almost
palpably feel the nurse's doubt, and her anxiety spiked as she contemplated the
possibility of being sedated against her will.  As if on cue, the nurse
began to rummage through several medicine bottles on the counter, pausing only
when there was a knock at the door.  After opening the door and conferring
with another nurse in hushed voices for several minutes, she turned back to
Anna.

"Okay,"
she finally conceded.  "You're right – he's here and he's asking to
see you. But only for a few minutes – you really need to rest."

Though Anna hardly
expected Caleb to enter her room smiling, she was nonetheless taken aback by
his red-tinged eyes and ashen face as he sat down in a chair by her bed.

Reaching over and
clasping her hand in his, he looked up at the ceiling to collect his troubled
thoughts before finally looking her in the eye.  "Were you ever going
to tell me?" he asked quietly, a slight catch to his voice.

Anna opened her
mouth to answer, but nothing came out.  "I'm sorry," she finally
said hoarsely.  "You were going through so much, and I didn't want to
make things worse for you."

Caleb took a deep
breath, teetering on the brink between calmness and a total loss of
control.  "Anna …"

"I didn't
even know where to find you, Caleb.  You left me – remember?"

It wasn't her
intention to make him feel worse than he already did, only to speak the truth. 
He said nothing, though she heard his breath quicken as his grip on her hand
tightened. 

"I didn't
plan for this to happen, but when it did …" She paused, choking on tears
that she desperately fought to hold back, only to lose the battle. 
"I wanted this child so badly, to have a part of you with me
forever."

Caleb loosened his
grip on her hand, then released it altogether.  It wasn't the reaction she
expected, but what followed was even more heart-shattering.  His face
buried in his hands, Caleb began to cry.  At first he was nearly silent,
though his shoulders heaved almost violently.  That he had been so adept
at holding everything in for so long only made his intensely emotional display
that much more gut-wrenching for Anna to witness.

"Caleb, it's
okay," she said as she tried to steady her shaky voice with only partial
success. "Everything's going to be okay."

Judging from his
now audible sobs, her words did little to soothe him.

"I don't
deserve to be here," he choked, his body shaking as he tried to catch his
breath.  "Dwayne and Joel are dead and I'm still here.  And now
our baby …"

As Caleb stood up,
visually dazed and determined at the same time, Anna began to fear where his
seeming breakdown might be headed.

"Caleb, where
are you going?"

 Like a stun-gunned
bull only half down for the count, he stumbled into the IV holder and knocked
it to the ground, oblivious to Anna's scream of pain as the stretched line
pulled on the needle still taped to her arm.

"I have to go
back," he mumbled, his eyes fixated on a scene that clearly only he could
see.  "I forgot someone … have to go … have to get him … I can't let
him die there …"

The door flew open
as a burly security guard ran into the room, followed closely by two nurses who
no doubt heard the increasingly loud ruckus from the hallway.

"Don't hurt
him!" Anna cried, her world growing darker by the moment. 

"We need help
in here!" one of the nurses screamed as she was inadvertently tossed aside
while the trio tried to physically subdue him. 

Peering down at
her arm, Anna closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she yanked out the IV
needle to free herself.

"Don't corner
him," she yelled as Caleb walked into the counter and stumbled back,
wide-eyed and visibly sweating.  He appeared to be viewing
something
…
just not the actual hospital room.

"Just give me
one chance," Anna pleaded as she thrust herself between Caleb and the
guard and nurses.

"It's too
dangerous," the guard replied, though she had no intention of heeding his
warning.

"Caleb,"
she said quietly but firmly. "Listen to me.  You need to steady
yourself.  We have to go back and rescue them.  Everything will be
okay – it's not too late."

What the hell
am I doing?
Anna screamed the question inside herself, knowing well that
her on-the-fly plan to calm Caleb down could grossly backfire at any moment.
Still, she felt a flicker of hope as his hurried breathing seemed to catch
itself and then start to even out.  Slowly, she reached out and touched
his arm, holding steady as he flinched. Blood trickled down her forearm from
the unbandaged IV puncture wound, and she could only hope it wouldn't set off
yet another flashback. Several more seconds and then she gently touched his
other arm, pulling him closer as she felt his body start to let go, the fight
inside of him evaporating.  Silently weeping, he slowly slid to the
ground, the weight of his body pulling Anna down with him.  She cradled
him protectively as the security guard and nurses viewed the scene with stunned
expressions.

One of the nurses
reached for the wall phone. "I think we need to get someone from the psych
department down here," she said quietly into the receiver.

"Everything's
going to be okay," Anna whispered as she held Caleb close.  As
uncertainty spilled into her thoughts, she hoped that he would believe her more
than she could believe herself.

THIRTEEN

"Hello, I'm
Doctor Margaret Blake," the curly haired and bespectacled woman said as
she firmly shook Anna's hand. "I'm the resident clinical psychologist at
the hospital.  I'm glad you agreed to meet with me."