Chapter 17 #2
“His arm is clearly fractured, and his blood pressure is really low, so there could be internal injuries.” Mac watched them pull a warming blanket over his father, trying to raise his body temperature.
He squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed into his own blanket, hoping to stop the violent trembling. Please, God. I’ll do anything. Just don’t take him from us yet. Not yet.
Much to Mac’s dismay, the clinic’s emergency personnel treated him like he was the patient. He struggled against their efforts to remove his wet clothes and get him into scrubs. “I’m fine! I don’t need to be seen. I have to know what’s going on with my father!”
“Mr. McCarthy, you’re hypothermic, and your pulse is weak,” the nurse said. She examined Mac’s eyes with a flashlight. “You might be a bit shocky, too.”
Mac’s chest began to ache the way it had during an anxiety attack a year or so ago, but he didn’t dare tell them that. “I’m not the patient!”
“You are now,” the formidable nurse declared after poking a thermometer in his ear. “Your temp is ninety-four.” She tugged a heated blanket up over him. “We’ve got to get you warmed up.”
Mac didn’t want to admit that the heat felt really good. “Can you find out what’s going on with my dad? Please? And Luke Harris? He was brought in, too.”
The nurse patted his arm. “I’ll go check. Try to settle down.”
“I need to call my wife. Can you get me a phone? Mine got ruined in the water.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Continuing to tremble under the blanket, Mac waited a long time for the nurse to return.
He had plenty of time to ponder life without his father and for the ache in his chest to intensify.
The whole thing had happened so damned fast!
One minute his dad was standing on the dock, the next minute he was seriously injured and fighting for his life.
Mac shuddered as the images ran through his mind like a horror movie he couldn’t escape: his father disappearing from the pier, floating facedown in the water, the pool of blood surrounding him.
The nurse returned. “Since I don’t own a cell phone, one of the other nurses is getting hers for you. They’re taking your dad for some tests. He’s hypothermic as well, so we’re warming him up. His arm is definitely broken. That’s all I know at the moment.”
“Is he awake?”
“Not yet.”
“Is that normal?”
“Head injuries run the gamut. We’ll know more after we see the scan.”
“What if he needs a neurologist?”
She glanced up from his chart. “If necessary, they’ll fly one in.”
“Can’t we fly him to a trauma center?”
“He can’t fly if he has a brain injury, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to wait and see what the tests show, okay?”
No, it was not okay. None of this was okay, but what choice did he have but to wait for more information? “How about Luke?”
“Is he a relative?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“My, um, brother?”
She gave him a skeptical smile. “I can see the resemblance,” she said dryly. “Since he’s your ‘brother,’ I can tell you he has a badly sprained left ankle. But you did not hear that from me.”
“He probably saved my dad’s life—and mine, too.”
“Then I guess we’d better take extra special good care of him.”
“Please do.”
“So,” Maddie said as she and Sydney pored over baby furniture catalogs at Maddie’s house. They were sitting on the floor while Thomas played with trucks next to them. “Are you going to spill the beans on why you’re positively glowing this morning?”
Images from her amazing night with Luke flashed through her mind, heating her face.
“And blushing,” Maddie said, hooting with laughter.
“It’s incredible. I can’t believe it’s possible, but it’s even more intense now than it was before. How can that be?”
Leaning on the coffee table, Maddie rested her chin on her upturned hand. “Wow. As I recall, it was quite something before.”
Sydney nodded. “We have this unbelievable connection. I can’t even describe it. When you think about it, though, it shouldn’t even work between us. We’re so different, you know?”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m loud and outspoken, and I need to talk everything to death. He’s Mr. One-Word Answer. Less is always more with him.” Sydney paused and then added, “Except in bed, of course.”
“He can’t help that,” Maddie said, laughing. “He’s a guy.”
“True.”
“Will less be enough for you over the long haul?”
“That’s something I worry about. He’s very content with a smallish life on this island. I’m used to much bigger—lots of people and friends and stuff going on.”
“You’d definitely be downsizing if you lived here year-round. No doubt about that, but it wouldn’t be all bad. There’s something very cozy about settling in for a long, cold winter with the one you love to keep you warm.”
“You should know.” Sydney smiled at the blissful expression on Maddie’s face. “I’m tempted to try it for a winter.”
“Oh, yay!” Maddie clapped her hands. “We’ll keep you entertained. Don’t worry.”
“What if I try it and it doesn’t work out? What if I start to go stir-crazy halfway through the winter?”
Maddie thought about that for a minute. “I suppose you’d have to deal with that if—and when—it happens.”
“I’m afraid I’ll turn his life upside down—again—if I move out here only to decide later it doesn’t work for me.”
“No one says the only place you and he can be together is here.”
“His whole life is here. He has an amazing side business restoring boats. Did you know that?”
Maddie nodded. “I’ve been out on the Chris-Craft he did for Mr. McCarthy. It’s gorgeous. I’m always so afraid Mac is going to crash it or scratch it or something.”
“Luke does beautiful work, that’s for sure.”
“And there’s no reason he couldn’t do that same beautiful work on the mainland.”
“That’s true.”
Maddie reached over to squeeze her hand. “You’re getting ahead of yourself worrying about what might happen. All you can do is try it and see what it’s like. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. I’m sure he wants you to be happy, and if it ends up that he has to move, then I’m sure he would.”
“But that would make him unhappy.”