19. Juniper
19
JUNIPER
“ T his is the last place where the security app located him,” said Beau, pointing to a map of the estate. “As you can see by the outline, then he was almost directly at the perimeter, which means if he ventured farther, he wouldn’t have been tracked.”
“When was that?” my dad asked.
“Going on an hour.”
His gaze met mine. Temperatures were well below freezing. If Cord wasn’t found soon, he’d die, if he wasn’t dead already.
“We don’t have time to waste. Twilight is upon us,” said my uncle, who’d divided everyone into teams. There were a total of twenty guys headed out, and they’d found enough snowmobiles in some of the outbuildings for each to have their own. Dad, Grayson, Uncle Pete, and one of the EMTs from the East Aurora fire department rode theirs here.
“There were seven in a storage room in the barn,” Beau said. “One of the guys said there are six now. ”
It made sense. Cord wouldn’t have gotten very far if he wasn’t on a sled.
I offered to go out with them, but my dad wouldn’t have it. Rather than wasting time arguing with him, I let it go. Sitting here, waiting for word, though, felt harder than if I was out in the frigid cold. At least then, I’d be doing something.
The ranch had a comms system, and each person in the search party wore one so they could communicate with each other. Beau left a set with Sam and me so we could hear what was happening in real time. Via the app, we could also follow their locations.
Minutes dragged on like hours as we watched and listened. I tried reading more of Miss Cena’s journals, but couldn’t concentrate.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Sam.
“I don’t know what for.”
“Not reading.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can’t, either.”
I looked up at the clock like I had every few seconds. They’d been gone twenty minutes, and so far, no one had spotted anything other than stray cattle. According to the location tracker, they were getting close to the place where the app had last registered Cord.
“I see something,” I heard my brother say a few minutes later.
“Heifer,” someone else, whose voice I didn’t recognize, responded. “Hold up. There’s a lean-to. I’ll take a look,” he added.
“I see a sled not far from it,” said someone else. “It’s half buried. Let’s start digging.”
I had to leave the room. I couldn’t listen any longer. I went into the library, closed the door, rested against the wall where Cord had last held me, and cried.
When I returned to the kitchen several minutes later, Sam was ashen.
“They found him.”
I wrapped my arms around my midsection. “And?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Juni.”
I couldn’t make it back to the library before dissolving into tears again. I sat on the sofa in the living room, pulling my knees to my chest. Why hadn’t I noticed the time sooner? Why had I waited and called him rather than for help? If I had, maybe Cord would still be alive. I felt like a piece of my heart had broken off and was lodged somewhere in my chest. That’s how bad the pain was.
Tears turned into sobs when I thought about every time Cord and I had stopped ourselves from making love, including earlier, in the library. I cried for every time we’d struggled with whether or not it was worth it to get involved with someone whose home was almost two thousand miles away.
From the moment we met, I knew there was something special—different—between Cord and me. And now, he was gone. There were countless things I’d go back and do differently if only I could.
Sam sat beside me on the sofa, both of us crying. He’d been special to her too. He was the first cousin she’d ever known, and while Cord had siblings, no one could take his place, not for her and not for me.
It was close to eight before Sam received a call from Beau. When I sat down at the table next to her after the call ended, she said the snow had let up enough for a medical-transport helicopter to land and that Cord had been taken to a hospital in Buffalo. The men who’d found him, plus the emergency team who arrived on the scene, had taken turns doing two hours of CPR, performing emergency life support, and slowly rewarming his body.
“At the hospital, Cord’s body was connected to a machine called an ECMO—extracorporeal membrane oxygenation,” she said, looking down at the notes she’d made. “It’s used as a last-ditch effort to save patients whose lungs and heart are severely damaged.”
“I don’t understand. I thought he was…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
“Apparently, the doctor who saw Cord when he arrived told Beau there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d survive. A few minutes ago, he returned to tell them Cord’s body was warming and his heart was beating on its own.”
“He’s alive?” I gasped.
She reached over and squeezed my hand. “He is, Juni, but the doctor also said that he’s in a coma, and so far, there’s no sign of brain activity.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her voice softened. “I think your dad and Grayson are still there. They may know more than Beau.”
I returned to the library, closed the door, and called my father.
“Hey, sweetheart. Have you heard the news?” he asked.
“It’s very confusing. I was hoping you could explain what’s happening.”
He reiterated most of what Sam had relayed from Beau but added that Cord’s recovery thus far was nothing short of miraculous. “They’re optimistic, June-bug,” he said. “As long as they are, we will be too.”
“What about his family?” I asked.
“His brother is on his way here now with Decker Ashford. Grayson offered to meet them at the airport.”
“Dad? Are you still there?” I asked when it sounded as though the call had dropped.
“Sorry, sweetheart. The doctor came out, and I wanted to ask him something.”
“I’ll let you go for now. How long do you think you’ll stay there?”
“Don’t you want to know what I asked?”
“Uh, sure.”
“I asked if you could see him.”
I put my hand over my mouth. “Can I?”
“Yes, sweetheart. In fact, Beau said he’d leave now, pick you and Sam up, and bring you back here. ”
When I returned to the kitchen to tell her, she was on the phone. “Beau’s on his way here,” she said, covering the mic.
“My dad told me.”
She said something else to him, then ended the call. “Beau said to warn you that Cord looks pretty rough.”
“As long as he’s alive, I can handle it.”
Sam, Cord’s brother Buck, and I took turns sitting by Cord’s bedside for the next week. The doctors encouraged us to talk to him while we were there. I knew Sam read him Miss Cena’s journals. I had no idea what his brother might have said. For me, I struggled. Cord was in a coma, being kept alive by machines and medicines, and even the doctors had said they weren’t sure there was much hope for functional survival.
On the eighth day, I stood to excuse myself when the same doctor came in to check on Cord’s progress like he did at least once a day.
“You’re okay. I’ll only be a minute.” He held up a light and pulled one of Cord’s eyelids open. He did the same thing twice more.
“What is it?” I asked when I saw him smile.
“His eyes are tracking. ”
“What does that mean?”
“Brain function.”
He left, but came back a few minutes later, saying he’d scheduled several tests and that Cord would be out of his room for at least two hours, maybe longer. He also suggested I go home and get some much-needed rest.
“We won’t have any concrete results until tomorrow, anyway,” he added.
It didn’t matter whether I slept or not; I still looked haggard, and I didn’t care. Each day, I’d leave the hospital, drive home, and fall asleep, sometimes without changing out of my clothes.
I would’ve preferred to stay at the cottage, just to feel closer to Cord, but Buck had been staying there since he’d arrived in town.
One thing I didn’t do was drive. Either Gray, my parents, Beau, or Decker were always waiting to take me home and bring me back. Tonight was no different.
“Juni, honey?” I rolled over, not realizing I’d drifted off, when my mom stuck her head in my bedroom door. “Sam is trying to reach you.”
I felt around on the bed for my phone and saw I’d missed two texts and two calls from her. My heart sank, knowing Cord had to have taken a turn for the worse if she was trying so hard to reach me.
“Hey,” I said when she picked up.
“Juni! Have you heard?” She sounded happy.
“I haven’t.”
“Every test, every scan shows brain activity. He’s going to make it, Juni. I know he is. They even removed the breathing tube, and he’s doing it on his own.”
I’d had so many dreams where Cord came out of the coma and was fine that I had a hard time believing this wasn’t one of them.
“Hurry up and get here!”
“On my way,” I said, still expecting that, at any time, I’d wake up.
“Good news?” my mom asked when I came downstairs and saw it was daylight.
“Sam said the tests they ran show brain function.”
“Are you heading back to the hospital?” she asked after wrapping me in a big hug.
“I have to, Mom.”
“I’ll drive.”
Sam and Beau were still there when I walked into the room. He looked up at me, but she didn’t. When I stepped closer, I saw why. Cord’s eyes were open, and she was staring into them.
“Juni’s here,” she told him before standing from the chair where she’d been sitting, and motioning for me to take it.
“Hi,” I said, looking into the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. He blinked twice, and I leaned forward, brushed the hair from his face, and kissed his cheek.
When I was still there a few hours later, Beau asked the hospital staff if they could bring in a chair I could sleep in, not that I did much of it. I woke myself what seemed like every few minutes to check on Cord.