Chapter 33
Jordana stared up at the gun. The little quirk of Afonso’s lips told her he was going to kill her. One final act of vengeance on behalf of her uncle.
“No!” Forrest’s shout echoed in the room as time slowed.
Jordana saw Damon tighten the chokehold. She saw the way Afonso’s eyes became unfocused even as his finger pulled the trigger. Jordana closed her eyes knowing she was going to die.
The sound of gunfire had her flinching, but instead of a bullet slamming into her, it was a body.
Then there was nothing but silence. Jordana opened her eyes and looked right at Damon’s face filled with cold fury.
Afonso had fallen to his knees, but Damon wasn’t looking at Afonso.
He was looking at her and Forrest as he moved his hands and snapped Afonso’s neck.
Afonso fell at Damon’s feet and it was over.
Jordana looked down to where Forrest had knocked her out of the way of the bullet and in doing so, saved her life. “Forrest, you saved . . . Forrest?”
Jordana lifted her hands from where she’d wrapped them around his body when they had gone flying to the side to avoid the bullet. Only… her hands were covered in blood.
“Rowan!” Damon roared. It was the first time she’d ever heard fear in his voice.
Everything clicked into place. Forrest had saved her by throwing his body in the path of the bullet. When she looked down, she saw the blood seeping from his back.
“Forrest!” she cried, slamming her hands over the wound and pressing them down hard to try to slow the bleeding.
Granger and Damon were the first ones there.
They could have been saying something to her, but she didn’t hear them.
All she knew was that she was frantically trying to get the man she loved to wake up.
Rowan, Gavin, and Kenzie were suddenly there with her. Damon stood up, his hands covered in his brother’s blood. Then he was reaching down and pulled her to her feet as Granger and the agents lifted Forrest’s unconscious body and placed him on the bed. The bed where her father should have been.
Jordana didn’t even wonder where her father was as she clung to Damon. If his arm hadn’t been around her, she wouldn’t have been standing. Rowan was beside the bed. Gavin was on the bed with Forrest, and Kenzie was following every order they snapped out.
Her heart stopped when Forrest’s did. Rowan was giving CPR while Gavin was cutting Forrest’s shirt off and Kenzie was prepping the portable AED to shock his heart back to life.
Jordana couldn’t even cry. She couldn’t breathe.
She clutched Damon’s shirt in her fists, clinging to him as she prayed for Forrest’s life.
“Clear!” Gavin yelled as Kenzie and Rowan jumped out of the way.
Jordana went rigid when the shock jolted through Forrest’s body. Rowan placed his stethoscope on Forrest’s chest. “We got a heartbeat. We have to stop the bleeding.”
“I’ll get the helicopter and call the ER,” Kenzie called out.
“No time,” Rowan said. “Gavin, help me flip him over. Kenzie, hook up an IV and administer propofol. It’s in my bag. So is my surgical equipment.”
“I’ll get the equipment. You get my brother hooked up,” Hunter told Kenzie. Hunter’s face was a mask of rigid control as he slipped on a pair of medical gloves before he grabbed a sterile wrapped rectangular object and then two square packages also wrapped with that blue sterile paper.
Hunter set the rectangular package on Forrest’s lower back and flicked open the taped center before he opened the larger package.
He helped Rowan into a gown, gloves, and a head covering.
Then he did the same for Gavin before pulling out more sterile gauzes and something that looked like a turkey baster, and whatever else was in his large kit.
“IV in. Monitor hooked up. Administering anesthesia.” Kenzie was like a small fairy who quietly flitted around making sure everything was ready. Jordana hadn’t even noticed her.
Gavin was on his knees on the bed. Hunter had stepped back, but then Rowan had looked down at the wound and frowned. “I need more light.”
Hunter was on it. He ripped the lampshade from a lamp as Suze ran for their flashlights. Hunter held the light up and then Suze was back, shining one of the brightest lights Jordana had ever seen onto the wound. She’d pulled up a chair and stood on it behind Rowan, holding the light over him.
“Scalpel.” Rowan held out his hand and Kenzie placed the instrument in it.
Jordana tightened her hold on Damon and him onto her.
It was only then that she noticed the gentle touch on her shoulder.
She turned and saw her father standing, with pain etched on his face, but his hand on her shoulder.
Kane was beside him, helping him stand as no one spoke, but only watched as Rowan cut into Forrest’s back.
“Forceps,” Rowan ordered. “Where is it? Where is it?” Rowan muttered as his hand moved the forceps around inside Forrest’s body. “Suction,” Rowan snapped, clearly upset that he couldn’t find whatever he was looking for.
Kenzie pulled out the turkey baster looking thing and used it to suck out some blood as Rowan closed his eyes and moved his hand. She saw the way his brow furrowed then his face relaxed a fraction. “There it is!”
Jordana winced at the sight of Rowan digging around inside the wound, but then he slowly pulled his hand upward and a bullet was pinched between the forceps. “I need sutures. It hit an artery and the flow of blood to the heart is too low. That’s what threw him into cardiac arrest.”
Kenzie was there, pulling out a hook-like needle with a thread attached to it and a second pair of smaller-looking forceps.
“Forrest needs blood,” Gavin told Rowan. “Who is a match in your family?”
“I am. As his twin I’m the closest match,” Rowan told him as he continued to sew the artery back together.
“I’m sure some others of your family are too,” Gavin said, gently. “We need you in case another surgery is needed.”
“I’m the only other exact match,” Olivia said, stepping forward.
“Liv,” Granger said softly. “You can’t.”
“And why can’t she save our brother?” Rowan snapped, tension clear all through his body.
“Because she’s pregnant,” Granger simply said. There were no congratulations. Simply surprise. Jordana looked up at Damon and saw his eyes become glassy, but that was the only outward sign he’d heard him.
“I’m not going to lose my brother,” Liv told her husband. “And I won’t lose our baby. Right, Ro? Women have donated blood before while pregnant.”
“Usually only before they knew they were pregnant, but, it’s the safest time now. It becomes more dangerous as the baby grows and demands more nutrients,” Gavin answered. “We can find a universal donor. I’m sure there’s at least five of them in this room right now.”
“No. He’s my brother. He’s my blood. Take mine.” Liv shucked her suit coat and exposed her arm. “If I’m not mistaken, the danger to me is anemia. You can treat it if I even need it.”
Jordana saw the tension on Rowan’s face. The debate between his brother and his niece or nephew. “No, Liv. I won’t listen to you this time. As much as I want to reduce the chance of a reaction to the donor blood, I can’t risk your baby’s life. Even if it’s a small risk.”
“What blood type is he?” Jordana heard herself ask. Jordana heard Olivia answer and sagged against Damon, relief hitting her body.
“It’s okay. I’m a universal donor. I can give my brother my blood. I’d die for him. The least I can do is give him my blood,” Damon whispered to her.
Jordana shook her head, tears filling her eyes as emotion washed over her.
“Jordana is that type,” her father said and Jordana simply held out her arm.
“Let me save the man I love.”
Pain.
That was the first realization Forrest had that he was alive. He heard voices and beeping around him, but the darkness kept pulling him back into it.
He dreamed of the shooting. He dreamed of Jordana living. He dreamed of him dying. But then the pain was there to let him know that maybe he wasn’t dead yet.
It took a herculean effort, but he managed to open his eyes on a groan. He wasn’t at the Bells’ house anymore. He recognized the hospital setting before his eyes closed again.
“Forrest, can you hear me? Forrest, come back to me, please,” he heard Jordana calling from a far-off tunnel. The darkness was coming again, but her pleas for him to come back to her forced him to wade through that darkness and toward the sound of her voice.
“Jory?” he croaked, still only able to open his eyes for a split second. But that was long enough to see her face full of hope and fear before the darkness dragged him back.
“Forrest,” he heard Damon snap. “You need to wake up now. You’ve been asleep long enough. Rowan is about to lose his mind if he can’t have you conscious for your next exam.”
The stern voice of his older brother whipped the darkness back, and on instinct, Forrest opened his eyes.
“Forrest! Oh, thank God!” Jordana was holding his hand, kissing his knuckles.
He was on his side, staring right into her eyes.
Behind her was a sight that he’d never forget.
Damon stood rigid with fear, his face pale, and his jaw so tight it might shatter.
Then Forrest’s view was cut off as Rowan slid in and flashed a light into his eyes causing Forrest to groan.
“Knock it off, Ro. Let me rest.”
“Do you know where you are?” Rowan asked, his face just as tense as Damon’s had been.
“It looks like a hospital. How did I get here?”
“Ryker’s helicopter,” Rowan told him. “I had to perform emergency surgery on you at the Bells’ house with Gavin and Kenzie. We got you stable and we moved you here. I got the bullet out at the Bells’ and stopped the arterial bleed for good once we got here. You’re going to recover.”
“Jory, are you hurt?” Forrest asked, tightening his grip on Jordana’s hand.
“No, I’m not. Thanks to you.”
“Afonso?”
“Dead,” Damon said with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Your father?”
“Is right here.” Kane wheeled her father into view. He was dressed in borrowed clothes and sitting in a wheelchair.
“Lord have mercy!” Nurse Jen walked into the room with a young doctor.
“There is too much Townsend-erone in here. Nurses are spontaneously ovulating out there. The candy striper fainted. Come on now, give Forrest room to breathe and women’s ovaries a break.
Go sit outside for a little while. We have doctoring to do in here for the next thirty minutes or so. ”
Panic flooded Forrest, overriding the pain as Jordana got up.
“No, you can’t leave.” Jordana paused and gave him a comforting smile.
Before she could talk Forrest gripped her hand in his.
“You can’t walk out of this room without knowing that I live and die for you.
That you, Jordana Alves, are as much a part of me as my own heart. ”
“Candy striper down!” a voice called out in the hallway.
Forrest ignored it as all he could see was what he’d almost lost. “I know I should wait. I know I should get a ring first. I know I should be down on one knee, but I won’t waste another second without telling you that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life by your side, supporting you, following our dreams, and loving each other every second of every day of every year of every decade we have together. Jordana Alves, will you marry me?”
Tears had begun to stream down her face. “I don’t need a ring and I don’t need you down on one knee. All I need is you, Forrest. Yes! I’ll marry you.” Jordana dropped back into the chair and leaned forward, her lips caressing his with a kiss that would bind them together forever.
“Get back!” Jen shouted, using her blood pressure cuff as a whip to get the group of nurses to back out of the room.
“I swear, you Townsends do this just to mess with me, but here.” Jen propped the scared young doctor against the door to keep it shut and walked over to them.
She took off her stethoscope and let the roll of medical tape fall off it and onto her hand.
She took a strip of it off and twisted it down the middle and connected the ends, forming a ring. “There, now you have a ring.”
She handed it to Forrest, and while it might be nothing more than tape, it was a symbol of their never-ending love.
The second he could move he’d get her a real ring.
But the way Jordana smiled down at it as if it were a million-dollar diamond confirmed she was the perfect woman for him. Love trumped all, even diamonds.