Tough Customer (50 page)

Berry was none too steady as she stood up. She looked at Ski through watery eyes. Then her face crumpled, and she began to cry. He reached for her and hugged her close.

"I've been holding myself together for her sake, but I can't any longer."

"Go ahead and cry."

Oblivious to the other people in the cafeteria, he stroked her back and continued to hold her as sobs shook her entire body. She might lose the father she'd just found. That was bitter. She also bore the guilt for everything that had happened, and she would carry it for a long time.

He admired her for taking up that mantle. A more shallow individual would have made self-serving excuses and shrugged it off. His admiration was also tinged with pity. He had firsthand knowledge of how heavy a burden guilt could be. Only by sheer force of will would she carry on with her life and, eventually, forgive herself. He was confident she had the fiber to do it. She was, after all, a combination of two determined, hardheaded people.

Having cried herself out, she pulled away from him, plucked a napkin from the dispenser on the table, and used it to blot her eyes and face. "Well, that was a spectacle."

"Not really, and anyway, who cares?"

She gave him a wavering smile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"We'd better get upstairs. Mother may need me."

With his hand curved around the back of her neck, Ski guided her from the cafeteria and across the lobby toward the elevator bank. One was available, and they were alone as they rode up to the ICU floor.

He bent down and gently kissed the butterfly clip above her eye. It had been required to close the gash caused by the butt of Oren Starks's pistol.

She leaned into him. "I know you have duties, responsibilities. But if you can, I'd like for you to stick around."

"I'll stick around."

She looked up into his face. "Think before you commit, Ski. It might be for quite a while, and the outcome is unsure."

Knowing that they were now talking not only about the vigil at Dodge's bedside but also about their future together, he cupped her face between his hands and touched her lips tenderly with his. "I'll stick around."

It surprised the hell out of Dodge when he came to. He had a good buzz going. Everything within his field of vision was blurry around the edges, and his overall feeling was one of languor. It felt like he had a fifty-pound weight sitting on his chest, but that was only mildly uncomfortable. The best part, Caroline was there, bending over him, stroking his hair.

So even if he was dead, his afterlife wasn't half bad. He wondered if smoking was allowed. If so, this really was heaven.

Or maybe this was just a staging area, and it could still go either way.

In fact, the weight on his chest was steadily turning into a dull ache. He had a lot to account for. He'd better get started before he was escorted to the next level. Down.

He blinked Caroline into better focus. "I skipped out."

She smiled and placed her hand on his cheek.

"Didn't say good-bye." He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. Worse than dry. It was pasty, and his tongue kept sticking to the roof of his mouth, so it was difficult to form words, not that he could think of that many. "Nothing to offer you. Then. Now. Never."

She shushed him and continued to smooth his hair off his forehead.

Dammit, he needed her to pay attention. He shook his head, only then realizing that there were tubes in his nose.

Jesus!
How undignified was that? He reached up and pulled the cannula away. Or tried. Caroline replaced it, and there was nothing he could do about it because he didn't have enough energy to raise his hand again.

The dull ache had worsened, and now he remembered being wheeled down a corridor, blinding overhead lights flashing past with dizzying speed, people running alongside the gurney talking in loud, excited voices. Had a guy with a goatee actually been straddling his chest and pounding on him, or had that been a weird dream?

Had those extra-bright lights been on the ceiling of an operating room? Probably some asshole with a trophy wife, a golf club membership, and a healthy six-figure annual income had been digging around inside his chest, and that's why it felt so tight and achy.

He heard a soothing voice as if it was coming from the end of a tunnel. It said, "Only another minute, Ms. King. Then you'll have to leave."

He hadn't realized his eyes had closed until he pried them open again. Caroline was still there. He gazed into her face and thought how lucky he was to be seeing it one more time, and marveled over how beautiful she was. He felt the warm, wet trickle of his own tears. Well, this was just super. Here he was, about to die, and there were tubes in his nostrils, and he was crying like a complete puss.

He forced his thick tongue to move before his final minute in this staging area was up, and Caroline would be lost to him forever. "Sorry I was..."

Shit. Sixty seconds wasn't enough time to list all the things he was sorry for. He just needed to tell her how much he loved her, had always loved her and always would. But he had to hurry because the stranger with the soothing voice was injecting something into the tube in his arm. Instantly he felt a rush of honeyed heat and sublimity. It was great fuckin' stuff, but as good as it was, he fought its effects.

He must say what needed to be said to Caroline, and he must say it in a way that would encompass the immensity of his love.

He groped for her hand, found it, squeezed it with all the strength he had. "I'd die for you all over again."

She turned his hand and pressed his palm against her heart. It beat steadily, strongly against his hand. She bent down and kissed his lips. Not gently. But with ardor, the way she used to when she was either really aroused or really pissed off.

When she pulled back, she whispered, "I know you love me enough to die for me, Dodge. Do you love me enough to
live
?"

Damn the woman! He couldn't leave now. Now that she'd given him something more to prove.

THANKS MUST GO TO...

My longtime friend Barry Hanson, who provided me with information on Big Thicket National Preserve. Without his input, I really would have been lost in the wilderness.

And to Sheriff J. B. Smith of Smith County, Texas, who corrected all my misconceptions about those who wear the tin star. Well, most of them anyway.

And to Dodge Hanley, who's a fictional character, but one with enough forbearance and fortitude to live with me through the writing of another novel. It's my hope I did him proud.