Chapter 17
Spence had lost track of who all had come and gone. He’d vacated his spot for Hetty’s family, but not for just friends. All of the siblings except Troy had already been, he thought, but with seven total, he could be wrong. He hadn’t had much, if any, sleep since things had gotten bad.
He was back in the almost-comfortable reclining chair next to her bed, dozing in and out, when he heard the nurse talking to someone fairly close by.
“—and he hasn’t left her side since. It’s actually very sweet,” the nurse was saying to whoever it was.
He opened groggy eyes to look, and felt a jolt when he realized it was her mother. He swung his legs over and got to his feet, although it took him a moment to steady himself.
He was startled when the petite woman came straight to him and clasped both his hands in hers.
“Thank you, Spence.”
He blinked. “For what?” Taking her out where she got shot? For assuming she was going to be okay and deciding to stick the night out up there instead of carrying her down to somewhere Dad could have picked her up even at night?
“For saving her and getting her here alive.”
“Should have gotten her here sooner,” he said gruffly, unable to meet her eyes.
“But the doctor said this didn’t happen until after she was here. It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I’m the one who thought she’d be okay once the bleeding stopped. But she lost more than I realized and I—”
“Spence, stop. You’re the one who stopped that bleeding, or she would have died out there. She wouldn’t have even had the chance to fight.”
He should have protested, should have explained exactly how he’d been stupid about it, not realizing how severely injured she’d actually been. But when Hetty’s mother leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek, he couldn’t say a single word.
She then rushed over to Hetty’s bedside, taking her daughter’s hand in hers gently.
He knew she was close to all her kids—all seven of them—but guessed there was a special, different kind of bond with the only girl.
He remembered when Hetty’s father, Charles Amos, had died of a fast-moving cancer.
He had been an executive with an oil company where he had started out working the same job his son Troy now had on the oil rigs.
His death had left Hetty’s mother with seven kids to finish raising, but she’d never faltered.
He watched the two for a moment then realized he should probably leave them some privacy. He stepped out into the hallway and leaned wearily back against the wall. So wearily that the ICU nurse even paused to ask if he was all right.
“I’m all right as long as she is,” he said with a nod toward the room behind him.
When Mrs. Amos came out some time later, he’d finally sat down on one of the benches outside Hetty’s room.
She took a seat beside him, reached out and laid a hand over his.
He looked down at them, so tired, he caught himself comparing skin tone, how Hetty’s was somewhere in between his and her mother’s.
But the green eyes? They were the forever gift from Charles Amos, and he wondered what it was like to see that both loving and painful reminder every time you looked in a mirror.
When Mrs. Amos spoke, it was with quiet certainty. “That old saying about hindsight being twenty-twenty is true, you know. You had no way of knowing this could happen. The blame lies squarely on the predator who did this, not you.”
“I still should have—”
He stopped when her mother shook her head.
Because you just didn’t argue with this matriarch.
“No. You did everything you could and should have. And you’ve stayed with her, by her side, through it all.
My only girl, our treasure, has a chance, thanks to you, and your father.
” She paused then gave Spence an odd sort of smile.
“You’ve been a big part of her life for so long, I’m not surprised you’d be the one to help her through this. ”
When she’d gone back to her daughter, Spence sat running those last words through his weary mind over and over again, wondering if there was some deeper meaning there.
He should leave, he belatedly realized. Her mother was there now, she didn’t need him.
And when she had needed him, he’d completely missed how bad things really were and she’d nearly died because of it.
Because, when they’d been huddled under that survival blanket last night, all he could think of was her, how good she felt and how much better he felt after finally letting out the secret he’d carried all these years.
And how amazing it had felt to hear her admit to pretty much the same thing.
All those times when she’d jabbed at him, when she’d sniped at him, it had been for the same reason he’d always flirted with clients or other women in front of her; to hide the truth.
They’d been playing this silly game, each of them hiding their feelings behind differing masks, until fate had stepped in and slapped them both upside the head.
“Wake up, Hetty,” he whispered to the momentarily empty hallway. “You’ve got to wake up.”
* * *
When Hetty first heard the low hum of…something, she thought…
She wasn’t sure what she thought. It didn’t sound like her plane, and she wouldn’t have been sleeping if it was.
But then she remembered that jolt of adrenaline when the engine had died…
then the shots. The searing agony of the bullet tearing through her flesh.
Her next thought was that she had died and this was what it smelled like.
That startled her into opening her eyes.
She had to blink several times against the unexpected brightness. She had the fleeting notion that this was some kind of waiting room where you went after you died. Or maybe when you were in the process of dying.
But then there was movement and a moment later she was looking up into Spence’s face. Still groggy, she was struck with the horrible fear that he was dead, too. Had the shooter gotten him? Had he been hurt and she hadn’t known? Her pulse kicked up and suddenly she was a bit more awake.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Welcome back.”
“I…what? Where?”
“Easy,” Spence said soothingly. “We’re in Wasilla. Do you remember my dad coming for us?”
“I…” She scrunched her eyes closed then opened them again, determinedly shoving back at that groggy feeling. “Yes,” she said.
And she did remember lying across the back seats of the RTA helo, held in place by seat belts.
Looking up at the sky as they’d wheeled her into the emergency room.
Most of all, she remembered the look on Spence’s face when they’d gone through those swinging doors, leaving him on the other side.
And that was about the last thing she remembered.
The rest, the before part, came back to her in a rush now: last night huddled in the cave, the things they’d said, the things they’d finally admitted. She would have probably felt her cheeks heat if another question hadn’t arisen almost immediately.
“How long?”
“You’ve been pretty out of it for almost twenty-four hours. It’s Tuesday morning.”
She frowned. “Why? Did they drug me? I wasn’t feeling that bad, did they have to—”
She stopped abruptly when Spence reached out and cupped her cheek. Yesterday—no, two days ago apparently—that would have been unthinkable. Now, it was… She wasn’t sure what it was. Other than it felt good.
As she lay there looking up at him, she saw an odd sheen in his deep blue eyes. Tears? Why on earth would Spence Colton be tearing up?
He reached down and pressed a button on a cord that ran along the bed rail before he looked at her and said, “You crashed, Hetty. Pretty hard. Traumatic shock, they called it. From what they said, I guess once the adrenaline ebbed away, once you didn’t have to fight anymore, your body finally realized you weren’t doing so great. ”
“Oh.”
She didn’t know what else to say. So she simply looked at Spence’s handsome face and, for the first time since they’d been kids, allowed herself to truly appreciate his good looks. Looks she had always had to pretend to assess scornfully as the major tool he used to entrance clients.
Words came back to her then, in his voice, as he’d said them that night in the cave.
The looks were just part of the act, part of the cocky wise-ass routine that kept people from seeing the real me. The stupid me I always thought I was until you showed me another way.
She had never realized he’d thought himself stupid.
Perhaps because she knew better, because she’d dealt with that agile mind so closely during those tutoring sessions.
She’d seen the quickness of his thinking, the way he solved puzzles, the way complex mathematical problems never fazed him, the way he designed things that would actually work simply because he liked doing it.
Anything that didn’t involve traditional reading, he whizzed through.
This was far from the first time that she was grateful for the study she’d read that had suggested a way to use that visual acuity of his, that design ability, and relate it to the kind of language and writing the majority of the world used.
The memory that shot into her mind then was the day he’d come back for a session after they’d started using that technique and thrown his arms around her in a thank-you that was nothing less than joyous.
Maybe because that was the way he was looking at her now.
And that alone told her how serious these last hours she wasn’t even aware of must have been.
“Thank you for getting me out of there,” she said, aware her throat was a little sore and wondering if she’d had some kind of tube rammed down her throat at some point. She’d ask, later. The doctor, she decided, since she didn’t really want Spence to have to tell her about the worst of it.
“Thank Dad, he did the flying.”
“But you did the heavy lifting,” she said, wishing now she hadn’t been hurting quite so much so she could remember better how it had felt to have this man carrying her.
But all she remembered was how steady his pace had been, how careful he’d been not to jostle her, how he’d held her as if she were some precious thing he hadn’t dared drop.
“You’re not heavy.” A flash of the old Spence grin warmed her. “It’s just all that muscle, girl.”
A woman in scrubs came in, quickly rushing to her bedside, saying how glad she was to see her awake. Spence started to move aside, and instinctively Hetty grabbed his hand. She didn’t want him to go.
“She needs to check some things,” he said soothingly. “And I need to call your mom. She went to get some rest. And text Troy. And the rest of your family, who’ve all been here, several times. My family, too. Everybody was worried.”
She nodded, feeling a little tired as it started to register just how bad it must have been, to pull everyone here.
It might only be a hundred and ten miles as the helicopter flew from Shelby to Wasilla, but it was about two and a half times that if you tried to drive.
And her mother had been in Seattle with friends, taking a well-earned and long-delayed vacation.
She watched him go, phone in hand, as he left the room.
“That boy,” the woman beside her said with a smile as she made notes from the monitor readings at the head of the bed, “has not left your side since you were moved in here. He gave your mom some space, but nobody else. He was a better guard dog than my German shepherd. He must love you a lot.”
Hetty felt her pulse leap at those last words, and the nurse laughed as it registered on the monitor.
“He’d kick-start my pulse, too, honey, but he’s only got eyes for you.”
No matter how the woman poked and prodded, Hetty didn’t feel much of anything after that.