Wholehearted (2 page)

Declan nodded, feeling numb.

“Are you sure? I’ve never seen you so shaken up. Is this the first time you’ve attended a call like this?”

Declan gave himself a moment for his eyes to refocus before answering Mack. “No, I’ve done calls like this before. This isn’t as bad as some of the stuff I’ve seen, but I don’t know, Mack. I just need to make sure he’s okay.” He looked back at the man. The EMTs had securely strapped him to the spine board and were loading him into the ambulance. “He’s going to be okay, right?” he asked weakly.

“You wanna go with them to make sure?” Mack asked.

“Yeah,” Declan said, flooded with relief that he could keep watch over Lucas.

“All right. We will take care of things on this end. I’ll have Scott come and bring your car back to the office. You go and I’ll follow behind in my car, okay?”

“Yeah,” Declan said, grateful that Mack seemed to understand.

He didn’t know why he was so affected. He’d seen beatings before. Hell, he’d seen beatings much worse than this, but he just couldn’t get Lucas’s face out of his head. He felt responsible, like it was his duty to make sure the guy was going to be fine. How fucked up was that? He’d never felt like this before.

He marched over to the ambulance and climbed in the back. The attending EMT didn’t question it, just moved over to make room on the bench for Declan.

“Can you give me the rundown on his injuries, please?” Declan asked, taking out the notepad from his utility belt and making notes. He needed the information for the file, but more than that, he needed to know for himself exactly what this man was going to have to overcome to be healthy again.

“As far as we can tell, he’s got a broken arm, possibly a broken shoulder, a couple of broken ribs, and absent breath sounds on his left, so likely a punctured lung.”

“Is that from the stab wound?” Declan asked as calmly as possible, but inside he was so angry he wanted to punch the wall of the ambulance.

“No, the stab wound seems to be pretty superficial. I don’t think there’s any internal bleeding, but they’ll run some tests at the hospital to make sure. There’s only so much we can determine in the field. When we get him to Coast Memorial they’ll go over him head to toe.”

“Is he going to need surgery?”

“We won’t know until we get a proper assessment, but my gut says yes. Punctured lungs aren’t good, and although we don’t think the stab wound hit any organs, he may need to be stitched up internally depending on how clean the cut is.”

“Okay, any other injuries you can tell me about now?”

“He’s likely going to have a concussion, and he lost a lot of blood, so he’s going to need at least two or three units.”

“So do you think he’s going to walk away from this?”

“I’m not really qualified to say….”

“Oh come on,” Declan prodded, “I know you guys know more than you’re allowed to tell. I just wanna know if he’s going to be all right.”

“I’d say that it looks a lot worse than it is when they’re all covered in blood like this. He’ll need a cast, and about a week in the hospital, but barring any bad news once the doctor gets a good look at him, I would say that he should be able to go home after that and make a full recovery. You can’t quote me on that, though. I’m not a doctor and I am not supposed to be making assumptions like this. That’s just my best guess.”

“Thanks. It helps. Is he in pain?” Declan asked.

“Not right now. He was unconscious when we arrived, but we sedated him anyway to put the airway in. They’ll give him some good stuff at the hospital too, so the worst of the pain should be over for him.”

Declan scooted to the edge of the bench.

The medic gave him a little smile. “Most of the damage is on his right side. You can touch him if you want to. It won’t hurt him.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

Declan wanted to. He wasn’t sure why he felt so strongly drawn to this man, but the feeling swamped him. He reached out and gently took Lucas’s hand, rubbing slow circles across the top with his thumb. As he held it, the coldness in Lucas’s skin melted away, until it was warm and solid beneath his. That reassured him, and made him feel more secure in the knowledge that Lucas was going to be okay.

“Do you know him?” the EMT asked.

“No. All I have at this point is a name. Hope Cove is small enough that everyone knows everyone else. Whoever he is, he’s not from here.”

The EMT looked at him, but Declan didn’t find any judgment in his eyes. He wondered how many broken patients and distraught family and friends this guy had dealt with during his career. He guessed quite a few.

The ambulance sped down the highway, lights flashing and sirens blaring, until they reached the trauma bay at the hospital in Ellsworth.

The driver hopped out and walked around to the back, then flung open the doors. From that moment, it was a hectic scene of the medics, doctors, and nurses all working on getting Lucas cleaned and prepped for whatever tests and exams he needed. All Declan could do was sit and wait in triage.

Mack arrived a few minutes later with two paper cups of coffee. He sat next to Declan, who had preoccupied himself with counting the spots in the linoleum tiles on the floor. Three hundred and eighty-two spots before Mack put the coffee into his hand.

“You all right, Declan?” Mack asked.

“Yeah, this call just shook me. I don’t know why.”

Mack shrugged. “It just happens like that sometimes. Some people affect us more than others do. There isn’t anything you could have done differently. You did good. We have the whole department working on this, trying to figure out who is behind it. He’s going to be okay
, and it’s because of you.”

“That’s not true, Mack. I panicked,” Declan said, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, coffee cup clutched in both hands. “I tried to remember what they’d taught us in first aid, but my mind just went blank.”

“No, really, you did the best you could. I’m sure he’s going to be fine. Do you want to give me your report now?”

Declan turned his head to look at Mack. “Can it wait a little bit? Everything still feels a bit fuzzy.”

“Sure. You’ll have to give it to me sooner rather than later, though. I don’t want you forgetting something down the road and letting the asshole that did this get away with it.”

Declan saw red. He’d been so preoccupied with worry over how Lucas was doing, he hadn’t stopped to think about who had done this to him. His blood heated, and he had the urge to hunt down and kill whoever had hurt him.

“It’s suddenly feeling so much clearer. Let’s get it done now.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

T
HREE
HOURS
later, Declan and Mack were on their fourth cup of coffee, sitting in the waiting room trying not to stare at the clock. Declan fidgeted in his seat, becoming more impatient with each passing sweep of the second hand. He stood, walked in measured steps to the nurses’s desk, and asked as politely as he could if there was any new information.

“Let me check for you,” the nurse said, her voice syrupy sweet and lacking the bitter edge that more seasoned nurses possessed. She picked up the phone and talked to someone on the surgical floor.

“He’s just come out of surgery, but he’s still unconscious. You’ll have to wait until he’s awake to get your report, officer.”

“Can I see him now?”

The nurse looked confused, but buzzed him through to the back hallway anyway. “He’s on the second floor, room 215.”

“Thanks,” Declan said. He turned to Mack. “You coming?”

“No, go ahead. I’ll wait for you here.”

“Okay.”

The elevator ride up to the next floor seemed to stretch out infinitely. The antiseptic smell of the hospital swirled around him, potent once again as the doors slid open to the second floor. He walked right past the nurses’s station and down the hall, and into room 215. Lucas was there, hooked up to machines that created a symphony of beeps and clicks in the background. He looked smaller than he had lying lifelessly on the dock. He had more color, though, and it brightened Declan’s spirits to see him with a bit more life to him.

Declan didn’t know much about medicine, but the fact that Lucas was breathing on his own, the beeps were steady and sure, reassured him that Lucas was going to be okay.

He pulled the burnt-orange vinyl chair across the room and sidled it up to Lucas’s bedside. He didn’t know when he would wake up, or how long he was allowed to stay in the room, but he wasn’t planning on leaving until they kicked him out. He pulled his cell phone out of the holster on his utility belt and texted Mack. He wanted to let him know that he intended to stay there for the long haul and he might as well head home to Oliver. Mack and Oliver had been together for almost a year, and Declan didn’t want to keep the couple from spending time together. Declan could take a cab back to Hope Cove if he needed to.

Mack responded that Declan shouldn’t be stupid, that he would come back and pick Declan up when he was ready to go. Declan thanked him and put his phone back into the holder.

Now that Lucas was all cleaned up, Declan had a chance to really look at him, take him all in. The swelling had gone down enough for Declan to see that the man was beautiful. Light-brown hair was messy and stubble was starting to show along his jawline. He still hadn’t opened his eyes, so Declan had no idea what color they were.

He picked up Lucas’s hand and held it in his. He was careful to avoid the IV that the nurse had inserted into the back of his hand. He turned his hand over, tracing the lines across his palm. Lucas’s hands were rough, calloused. He worked with them. Declan wondered what he did for a living. He was curious about a lot of things. He still hadn’t been able to glean much information other than his name and date of birth. He could run a check on him back at the station, but he didn’t want to leave until he absolutely had to.

He was still holding Lucas’s hand when the doctor came in for rounds.

“Oh, hello,” the doctor said cheerfully. Was everyone in this fucking hospital new? Only new people were this fucking bright-eyed in a hospital. Declan immediately got his back up, wanting to know if rookie doctors were really the best option for someone who was as badly hurt as Lucas.

“Hello,” he managed to grunt.

“Hello Officer. It’s very nice of you to stay with him, but not at all necessary. We can alert you when Mr. Hale regains consciousness.”

“I’m just fine right here.”

“Well then, suit yourself. Don’t mind me, I just need to check on a couple of things.” The doctor leaned over Lucas and checked several of the monitors. He looked over the IV drip and blood bag. He seemed satisfied. He pulled his penlight out of his coat pocket and lifted Lucas’s eyelids. One at a time, he flicked the light back and forth across his pupils.

“Everything look okay?” Declan asked.

“So far, so good. He did very well in surgery; this one’s a fighter. We just need to wait until he wakes up to make sure there is no residual damage from the brain swelling.”

“Brain swelling?” Declan swallowed hard. Brain swelling. That was bad, wasn’t it?

“Nothing to be too worried about. We ran some scans and everything seems to be normal. We just need to be sure that there are no subdural hematomas lurking about, and once we’re sure that the concussion is all cleared, he can go home, provided he has someone to take care of him.”

“Okay, thanks,” Declan said. “Are you going to be back to check on him soon?”

“You’ll see the nurses come in to monitor his progress. I just started my shift and wanted to have a look at all the patients on the floor.”

“Okay. Do you think he’ll be unconscious for very long?”

“Likely no, but with something like this, it’s very difficult to predict. It could be hours, or even days. The body is a miraculous thing, and it knows what it needs. At this point, we’ve done everything we can, medically speaking, to help him, and now it’s up to him to rest and heal.”

“Thanks,” Declan said.

“You’re welcome. You might want to think about heading home and getting some sleep. I promise we’ll let you know as soon as he’s awake. You can come back and get his statement then.”

“No, thanks. I think I’ll stay here.”

“Sure,” the doctor said. “Have a good night.”

“You too.”

The doctor left the room, the beeping and buzzing the only sounds left. Declan picked up Lucas’s hand again and gently squeezed. He didn’t know who this guy was or if there was anyone waiting for him at home, but he wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone, that there was someone here watching over him and pulling for him to make a full recovery. The Hope Cove PD would be searching for next of kin, and in the meantime, Declan didn’t know if Lucas was aware of anything, but it made him feel like he was doing something constructive.

D
ECLAN
WOKE
up to a dark room. He glanced at his cell phone and saw that it was past eleven. He’d been at the hospital for almost eighteen hours, and as far as he could tell, there was still no change with Lucas. He stood, stretching his arms and legs as he did. Hospital chairs were not the most comfortable place to fall asleep. His neck was stiff and his right foot was asleep, but he was happy the nurses hadn’t tried to get him to go home.