Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“She’ll be here soon.” Chris checked the time on his waterproof watch, the new one Rory had purchased him since his Breitling was at the bottom of the ocean.
Making that phone call to his mom a few hours ago had been one of the hardest things Chris had ever done.
Never mind the fact he hadn’t spoken to her in years, but having to inform her that the son she chose over him had been in a serious accident and was in the hospital had been a bit surreal. Thank God Rory had been at his side.
His mom was in New York City at the time, so she hopped on the next train to D.C.
Rory held his hand as they sat in the waiting room at the hospital. “Are we staying until she gets here?”
“I don’t want to leave Elijah alone even though he refuses to talk to me.
” Chris’s stomach churned at the words. He’d messed up.
He should never have let Elijah get into that car and drive away, and he’d just watched him go.
Watched that little red car zip off, and if Rory hadn’t remembered Elaina’s warning, Elijah would most likely be dead.
Drowned. “I don’t want to face her, either. ”
“Maybe you need to?”
Face my demons. Yeah, maybe. He was going to therapy next Friday, and surely his therapist would encourage him to come to his own decision about when to seek his mom out and have some closure.
He tightened his hold on Rory’s hand and closed his eyes, doing his best to slow his rapidly beating pulse even though it’d been five hours since the accident. Five hours of sitting around at the hospital.
Ana had brought them clothes since they’d been wet, and Chris shirtless. Ana had emphasized the dry socks, which meant Harper had told Ana or A.J. about what Chris and Roman had shared back on Mona Island.
Ana also picked up Bear in the parking lot outside the hospital for them once they’d arrived around noon.
A.J. and most of the team were still abroad dealing with the smugglers, and Chris was supposed to rendezvous with Roman to handle the Trott brothers, but maybe he’d let Roman handle the Trotts.
Chris’s brother needed him even if he wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
So, Chris wouldn’t walk away. He wouldn’t abandon Elijah the way their mother had abandoned Chris.
He should have sought Elijah out a long time ago. But . . . he’d been scared. And angry.
“You call Elaina?” he asked her.
“Yeah, she, um, said everything happened the way it was supposed to.” Rory looked at him with wide eyes.
Chris peered at her. “I don’t know how to dissect that, and maybe I won’t.”
“I’m right there with you. When Emily learned about Elaina’s prophecy of sorts that saved the day, well . . . she was shell-shocked even though she knows how special Elaina is.” Rory smoothed her other thumb over the tops of their linked hands.
“Chris Hunter?”
Chris stood at the sight of the nurse standing in the doorway to the waiting room. He barely remembered the accident or jumping into the water.
The window punch tool had broken the glass, and he’d used the knife attachment to cut the seat belt.
It’d been difficult to see under the water, but the car hadn’t been fully submerged by the time he’d made the jump.
If he’d gone in even thirty seconds later, he probably wouldn’t have found Elijah.
He was lucky to have only broken two ribs and suffered some bad lacerations. The doctors had said it was a miracle.
“Chris,” Rory whispered when he’d yet to answer the nurse, and she was on her feet next to him.
“Oh, yeah, right. That’s me.” He stepped forward. “Something wrong?”
“No, your brother wants to see you.”
“He does?” he asked in surprise, and the nurse smiled and nodded.
“Whenever you’re ready, you can go see him. Room one-eleven.”
Once the nurse left, Chris turned to Rory inside the empty waiting room.
Rory motioned to the speaker in the corner of the room, and her eyes grew glossy at the lyrics now playing when a new song came onto the radio. “Jason Mraz, I won’t give up,” she told him since it was obvious he didn’t recognize it, but he knew why she was pointing it out to him.
Chris wouldn’t give up. He’d fight like hell to keep his brother in his life. And, of course, he’d never give up on Rory, on what they had together.
He brought his mouth to hers in a soft kiss, then she directed him to go, but he shook his head. “Not without you.” He clasped their palms, and they went down the hall in search of room 111.
Elijah had an IV in his arm and was sitting upright in the bed, eyes cast out the window that ironically had a view of that damn river his car had gone into earlier.
“Your mom should be here soon,” Chris said.
“She’s your mom, too.” Elijah swiveled his head, which was patched up in some places. “Thank you for saving me. I knew you were a SEAL, but I guess your diving skills came in handy today.”
“How’d you know I was a SEAL?” He took one tentative step closer, maintaining hold of his lifeline—Rory.
“Mom told me. Your dad sends her pictures every year—those are the ones I found. One was of you in your dress blues. And one of you after you finished BUD/S.” He closed his eyes. “She kept them in a shoebox in her closet.”
For a moment, he’d thought his mom had cared. But no, his photos were with her shoes. Probably her overpriced heels.
“Dad was remodeling their closet and asked me to move everything out, and I dropped the box. The photos fell all over the floor. She said she left you when you were sixteen when she found out she was pregnant with me.”
Elijah’s dad was a real estate mogul from what Chris had read online. Plumber’s wife to millionaire in the blink of an eye.
Chris had also looked Elijah up on Facebook one drunken night two years ago, which was how he’d recognized him earlier, and why he’d stood stupidly in shock with Elijah on his driveway.
“I’m sorry she left you because of me. I see why you must hate me and don’t want to know me.” Elijah’s eyes parted to reveal tears.
He really is a young me. A pre-Navy me. That also meant they both took after their mom, and he wasn’t so sure how he felt about that.
“I don’t blame you or hate you,” Chris said in a low, but steady tone.
Rory let go of his hand as if urging him to go closer to the bed, and he followed her instructions.
“It wasn’t your fault. It was hers,” Chris let him know.
“She lost her mind when I told her I was going to find you. Meet you. She was already mad I wanted to join the military, and then seeing you in your uniform only made me more eager, which upset her,” he quickly rattled off, but he looked lucid.
Probably not too many pain meds being pumped into his bloodstream.
“I guess that’s why she was calling me,” Chris said, hating the touch of disappointment in his tone.
She didn’t care to talk to me. “I’m sorry I didn’t reach out.
I was hurt. Angry. And I joined the Navy and never looked back.
But I should have reached out, at least when you turned eighteen. You deserved to know the truth.”
“I deserved to know I had a brother, but that’s on her, not you. I’m sorry I got upset earlier.”
Chris tucked his hands into his back pockets, not sure what to do or say. “What branch do you want to join?” he asked instead.
Elijah smiled. “After that badassery I saw from you today, I gotta be a SEAL.”
“A Teamguy, huh?” Chris tried not to get choked up staring at a younger version of himself lying in that bed.
So many things he would have said to a twenty-year-old him.
So many lessons he now knew he could pass on to him.
“Training is tough, Elijah. Like really fuc . . .” He dropped the swear word, forgetting he was twenty for a moment and not ten.
“Oh, you can call me Eli. And I am good with hard.”
Chris glimpsed back at Rory, who had tears in her eyes, then focused on his brother. “I can help you prepare if you’d like?”
“Are you serious?” Eli set his hands alongside him and sat taller, then winced from the pain of his quick movement.
“SEALs have a saying, ‘Do today what others won’t, so you can achieve tomorrow what others can’t.’ You think that’s you? Can you be that guy?” He tipped his head, searching Eli’s eyes for an answer.
“I can,” Eli said with a firm nod.
“Well, since you missed your flight, why don’t you stick around for a bit? There’s a Halloween party coming up, and I can introduce you to a whole room of Teamguys who can give you some tips on BUD/S.”
“I don’t know what to say.” A few tears rolled down Eli’s cheeks.
“Say no.”
Chris’s head dropped at the sound of his mom’s voice behind him. Her sharp words and presence had his chest tightening.
“Mom,” Eli whispered, and Chris slowly turned, his heart racing faster than when on any operation.
Chris lifted his head and connected his eyes with the woman that looked far too similar to the mom he remembered before she’d left him. Had she aged at all?
Golden blonde hair that went to her shoulders. Blue eyes sharp on Eli, avoiding eye contact with Chris. Heels and her red pantsuit.
“Chris,” his mom acknowledged him in a curt tone, finally sweeping her gaze from Eli to him. She nodded, then sidestepped him to go to the only son she seemed to care about. Her actions, her everything, were a knife to the heart he didn’t deserve and hell, he didn’t need to put up with.
“You should go,” Eli said. “And, Mom, I’m talking to you.”
Chris reached for Rory’s hand and backed up to the wall near the door and away from Eli’s bed, needing space between him and his mom.
“I’m not leaving you.” She scoffed and faced the room, searching for help from Chris and Rory on the matter, which was insane.
Rory surprised Chris when she released his hand and strode confidently toward his mom.
“You lost out big,” she began. “The man your son became is the most amazing, incredible, and kind person I’ve met.
And I can’t begin to express how sorry I feel for you that you didn’t want to be in his life for the last twenty years.
It’s your loss. Not his.” She folded her arms and tipped her chin as if waiting for Chris’s mom to dare say a word to the contrary.
Chris stared speechless as she faced off with the first woman who broke his heart, finding himself in total awe of the woman who’d mended it.
Rory turned back toward Chris, her face flushed but looking satisfied with herself. This woman was everything to him, and he was overcome by emotion. “Marry me,” he said under his breath, unable to stop the question from flying out of his mouth.
Probably the worst possible time.
The worst possible place.
But . . .
“I regret nothing that’s happened in my life,” he said as he moved toward her, ignoring his mom, only able to focus on the love of his life that stole his breath and made him feel like life was worth living to the fullest. “It all brought me to you.” He was choking up as Rory stared at him with a shocked look on her face—whether it was a good shock or a bad one, he wasn’t so sure.
He reached for her hand and pulled her out of the room and away from his mom, needing privacy for what he was about to do. But he had to do it. He had to do it right the hell now. Life was short, and tomorrow you could get hit by a truck, so yeah . . . maybe it was insane, but—
“A perfect kind of crazy for each other,” she said, tearing up when he dropped to one knee.
“You’re my adventure. My thrill.” He smiled, his eyes watering, too. “The woman who makes me feel like I can fly.”
Rory knelt before him, so they were on the same level because that’s who they were, a team. Equals. They may have only been together for a short time, but he loved her so damn much that time didn’t matter. Not at all. He knew she was the one. His only. His fortune.
She pressed her lips to his in a tender but searing kiss, then whispered, “Hell yes.”