Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sully heard her voice from a distance. He forced his eyes open and saw her.
Charley. He blinked. She was smiling at him through her tears.
At least he thought this was really her.
He’d had a reassuring, but all too brief dream about the two of them.
However, there had been a nightmare too.
Was she here, or was this another fantasy?
Had there been a car crash? He was confused and closed his eyes.
“Sully? Come back to me.”
Sully opened his eyes at Charley’s urging. He blinked again. Where was he? He noticed his dad standing at the end of the bed with a nurse at his side. He looked back to his right.
“Charley,” he managed, his throat dry and his voice raspy.
“Hi,” Charley said, wiping away the tears on her pretty cheeks.
Sully realized she was holding his right hand. Yes, he remembered hearing her ask him to wake up. Feeling happy and hopeful, he had opened his eyes to find she was not just in his dream. She was real, and she was here. He gave her hand a squeeze.
“Hi,” Sully whispered, looking up at her. Her blue eyes were puffy, and her dainty nose was pink, but never had she looked more beautiful.
“Glad you’re back with us,” his dad said, walking around the side of the bed and standing closer to Charley. “How do you feel, son?”
“Okay,” Sully replied.
“I’m going to let Dr. Sankari know his patient is awake,” the nurse said with a smile before leaving his room.
“I’m in the hospital?”
“Yes,” Charley and his dad said at the same time as they smiled at him.
Sully shifted in the bed and grimaced. With stiffness and pain, his body quickly reminded him that he had indeed been in a car crash.
“You’ve got bruises and scrapes, but amazingly no broken bones,” his dad said.
As his memory of the crash returned, Sully grimaced and asked, “How long was I out?”
Owen looked at his watch. “The wreck happened around nine p.m. last night, and it wasn’t discovered until daylight. It’s six p.m. now, so twenty-one hours.”
“You lost a lot of blood,” Charley said as she and his dad stood close together.
“Sit down,” Sully said, not wanting them to leave. Owen pulled up an extra chair next to Charley, and when they were both seated, he asked, “Is the blood loss why I was out so long?”
“That and a mild concussion is what Dr. Sankari initially thought,” Owen told him. “But when you didn’t wake up after receiving several pints of blood, he became concerned the cause could be neurological. Dr. Sankari was planning to send you to a specialty unit in Denver.”
“Okay,” Sully said, trying to make sense of it all. He tightened his grip on Charley’s hand and smiled at her. “I don’t need to go to Denver.”
His dad paused and then said to him, “Trish Potter didn’t make it.”
Sully flashed on a dark recollection of Trish lying, laughing, and stomping on the gas pedal.
He recalled the rain and grabbing the steering wheel to bring it back into the correct lane.
An oncoming car blared its horn. Trish claimed to be trying to scare him with a cruel trick.
He remembered her jerking the steering wheel on a curve and fishtailing across the road.
She lost control of the car and they had careened toward an embankment.
He heard Trish scream and saw her fling her arms across her face.
There was a sense of being airborne, and then jarring images and a severe pain along his ribs had melted into silent, merciful blackness.
“I remember most of it,” Sully said. “She was drunk.”
“It wasn’t your fault, and there was nothing you could have done,” Owen added.
“I shouldn’t have gotten into her car,” Sully said, still holding on to Charley’s hand.
“It’s my fault,” Charley told them and tenderly covered Sully’s hand with her other one. “You wouldn’t have gotten into her car if I hadn’t left the party without you.”
“No, that’s not true,” Sully said. “I could have ridden home with Dad.”
Owen nodded.“Right, I was waiting for you. It’s my fault for letting you get into the car of someone under the influence. I’ve kicked myself a hundred times.”
“You couldn’t have known she was intoxicated,” Charley said in Owen’s defense.
Shaking his head, Owen smiled his appreciation at Charley and said to Sully, “I wish I had followed you instead of being ahead of you on the highway.”
“The more she and I argued, the more Trish lost control,” Sully said. “I’m a grown man, and if there’s any blame, it sits squarely on my shoulders.”
“Sully, I’m so happy you’re alive,” Charley said softly, changing the direction of the conversation.
“Me too,” Owen said. “You’re the most important thing I have left in this world, son.”
“I’m happy to be here,” Sully said as a man in a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck, walked into the room with the nurse following close behind him.
“Mr. Sully,” the man said, stopping on the opposite side of the bed from Charley and Owen. With a smile he added, “I’m happy to see you’re back with us. I’m Dr. Asif Sankari.”
“Thank you, Dr. Sankari,” Sully replied. “Can I leave now?”
“No, sir. Not today,” Dr. Sankari said, looking from him to the monitors. Taking his wrist, the doctor felt Sully’s pulse and nodded. “I want to run a couple of tests and draw another set of labs. If those look good, I’ll have you moved out of the ICU to a regular room.”
“Can I go home tomorrow?” Sully asked as the doctor released his wrist.
“You’re on IV pain meds and antibiotics due to the thirty-two internal and external sutures in your left side.”
“A stitch for each year of my life,” Sully muttered as Charley gave him an encouraging smile.
Still on the opposite side of the bed and keeping the sheet in place over Sully, the physician lifted the side of his gown and examined the wound.
“Looks good.” He nodded and put the gown back in place.
“We’ll decrease the analgesics and see how you do overnight,” Dr. Sankari said in regard to the painkillers.
“Your temperature is almost back to normal, and you’ve had your last transfusion of blood.
But you just about bled out, young man.”
“I saw proof of that at the crash site,” Charley said to the doctor and then looked at Sully.
“When you run out of blood, you run out of time.” Dr. Sankari said, “I’ve canceled the transfer to Denver. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, hopefully on a discharge floor and we’ll go from there.”
“Thank you,” Sully said.
“Yes, thank you, Dr. Sankari,” Owen said and stood to shake the doctor’s hand.
“You’re welcome,” Dr. Sankari said and exited the room.
“What can I get for you?” the nurse asked him. “Are you thirsty?”
“Yes, and hungry,” Sully said.
“Good, I’ll go ask Dr. Sankari what you can have,” she said and left them.
“I talked to your cousins, and both Roy and Randy said for you not to worry about a thing,” Owen told him. “They have your horses and the store under control.”
“Thanks, Dad. Yeah, they’re good at taking over.”
“Maybe I should go and let you two visit,” Charley said, but when she tugged on her hand that was underneath Sully’s, he held on tight.
“No, please stay, Charley. I want to talk to you,” Sully said.
Bringing a container of water with a straw, the nurse pulled a bedside tray over the top of Sully and then raised the head of his bed so that he was in more of a sitting-up position.
Sully drank from the water container. A phlebotomist entered on the nurse’s heels and explained Dr. Sankari had ordered blood work and prepared Sully’s arm for a stick.
As she took the blood, his nurse told Sully the physician said he could return to a normal diet.
Then the phlebotomist took the blood she needed and left with his nurse.
“I’m going to step into the waiting room and make a couple of calls,” Owen said with a look of relief and a big smile. “I want to let your cousins and the Coopers know that you’re back among the living, Sully.”
“Owen, could you please let Derek and Chloe know I’m here with Sully, but I’ll be out to take the puppy off their hands later?”
“Will do,” Owen said with a happy smile. “Be back in a bit.”
“What puppy?” Sully asked when his dad was gone.
“A puppy adopted me this morning,” Charley said, keeping Sully’s hand clasped in hers. “I named him Wyatt Earp.”
“Where was this puppy?”
Charley hesitated and then squared her shoulders. “On the porch of my apartment.”
“Charley.” Sully sighed. “I didn’t want you to go there without me.”
She looked away and said, “I was upset last night and not thinking all that clearly.”
“I called you. Twice.”
“I temporarily lost my phone. I didn’t realize it until today,” she explained earnestly. “I found it outside at Triple C-West. I listened to your message and was about to call you when Chloe came to my rescue.”
Sully nodded. “I want to hear more about Wyatt, but let’s discuss what happened last night first.”
“Sully,” Charley said with a shake of her pretty head and a shrug of her slim shoulders. “I jumped to conclusions last night when I should have calmly stood my ground and objectively listened to your side.”
“Tell me what Trish said to you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I want to make sure we got the same lies. Tell me.”
Charley raised her chin and said, “That you were the father of her child and happy about it. She said you wanted me to leave and that’s why you ditched me at the party.”
Sully sighed. “Does ditching you sound like me or something I would do?”
“No, but I was in shock and when she told me to vamoose, I did.”
“I hadn’t gone out with Trish in six months, Charley,” Sully said. “The first time I’d seen her in all that time was the day she showed up in my kitchen when you were there.”
Charley nodded. “Chloe told me that Trish pulled the same pregnancy scare on Cash a few years ago.”
Sully smiled with empathy and said, “I’m so sorry you were hurt like that. I got into her car only because she said she knew why you left the party.”
“I’m okay. But her trick backfired this time and cost Trish her life.”
“Not to speak ill of the dead, but Trish is the one on whom the blame falls for what happened to her.”
“Certainly not you or your dad,” Charley was quick to agree.
“Certainly not on you either,” Sully said. “So, no more self-blame among us, okay?”
“Okay,” Charley said softly and gently squeezed his hand.
“Just to be clear—” Sully began as he studied the gorgeous girl, and then thinking he might be overstepping, he didn’t continue.
“Just to be clear about what, Sully?” she asked. “This is a day for truths, please tell me.”
A hospital employee with different-colored scrubs entered the room with a tray. Her name tag indicated she was from dietary, and she asked, “Mr. Custis?”
“Yes,” Sully said.
“Dinner,” the dietician said. She set the food on his tray and removed the warming lid.
“Thank you,” Sully replied. When she was gone, he looked at Charley. “Just to be clear, I would like to have a child someday.”
“So would I.”
“But with the right woman. The one I love.”
“Eat.” Charley pulled her hand free. Then, with a hint of a flirt in her voice, she said, “Maybe you’ll meet her.”
“Maybe I have.” Sully grinned as Charley blushed. He twirled pasta around his fork and then ate it as she took his phone and wallet out of her purse. She placed the items on the bed alongside his hip. Looking at them, he asked, “Did I lose those?”
“Yes. Your dad asked Derek to see if he could find your wallet and cell at the scene of the crash. With help from Spike, we did.”
“Thank you, Charley. I’ll thank Derek when I see him,” Sully said as Charley received back-to-back texts on her phone. He watched her frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Frick, also known as Rod, sent me flowers and wants to know if I’ll have lunch with him,” Charley said. Sully knew the use of Frick was her way of trying to make light of the texts. “Frack, alias Leon, says he was sick but is feeling better now and wants me to come see him.”
Sully asked, “What do you want to do?”
No answer to his most recent text. He had reached out to Charley because she wasn’t reaching out to him.
It had been another stab to his heart to see her drive off with the cowboy in the dark of night.
He’d been by her apartment. Her car wasn’t there, but he’d knocked on her door anyway.
No answer. Her flower shop still had the Closed sign hanging on the door.
The voices said she was with that rancher in the big truck.
Where did that guy live? He was sure they were having sex, and that turned his gut inside out.
Charley belonged to him. He needed to step up his game, but with his current level of anxiety he might push her too hard.
But having Charley satisfy his needs was an urgent and unrelenting priority.
The deadening bliss of another kill lured him.
Grabbing a handful of toadflax, he walked into the fading light of day.