Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The room was peaceful beyond Ethan’s eyelids, as quiet as it ever was when nurses were doing their jobs on the other side of the door.
He took inventory. His pulse felt steady. He had a catheter at the back of his right hand and a bandage wrapped around his left shoulder and back, figure-eight style. His chest burned with every breath.
He’d been in the hospital for two nights. Three, if he counted the time spent in the ER, but since he didn’t remember any of that, he didn’t count it.
Blood lost, ribs cracked, a lung that was agonizing to fill. A bullet that would’ve killed him if it had hit a couple of inches to the right—his heart, his neck, any arteries. Somehow, it didn’t hit anything but skin and muscle.
Funny how much skin and muscle could hurt.
But the warmth along Ethan’s good side was the only feeling that mattered.
Mei Lin had folded herself onto the mattress beside him, one hand resting over his sternum, lifting each time he inhaled.
The eleven-to-seven nurse had tried to get her to move to the chair the night before. “He needs his rest. You must give him space so he can sleep.”
Mei Lin had looked at the woman with wide eyes and answered in a long, apologetic stream of Mandarin, spreading her hands, shaking her head, seemingly understanding none of it.
The nurse tried twice more, and Mei Lin smiled and nodded until the nurse gave up and walked out.
Ethan had made the mistake of chuckling and paid the price in pain.
The nurse was probably right, and if Ethan were his patient, he’d make her sleep elsewhere.
But he didn’t care what Dr. Wright would say. He wanted his wife beside him. The ache from his bruises was nothing next to the one he felt when she was gone.
He’d been telling everyone he was fine for days, and he’d believed it.
But now, attempting to line up the events since he’d awakened Thursday morning in the hospital, he only came back with fragments—a hand on his shoulder, a rail lowered, names offered and gone before he could hold them.
Wright men with jaws that looked so much like his own.
Women who teared up and didn’t seem to care that he saw.
They’d introduced themselves and then talked over him because he couldn’t keep up his end of any conversation.
Mei Lin had talked with them as if she’d known them her whole life. She’d laughed with Ethan’s cousins and his half sisters and their…husbands? Fiancés? He couldn’t remember.
Mom had flown in on Ethan’s first full day in the hospital, which would have been…yesterday? No, the day before. She’d fussed over him, fixing his blanket, tidying his table, reading the chart she couldn’t possibly understand.
She’d met the family that wasn’t hers, and they’d been kind to her, kinder than they’d had to be. When the room filled up with Wrights, Mom had disappeared into the hall, pretending she didn’t mind being pushed aside.
Yesterday, Ethan had told her to go home, that he’d see her soon. She’d kissed his forehead and left. He knew he’d hurt her, but being here with Gavin’s family had to hurt, too, and she had two boys back in Arizona who needed her.
The night before, Ethan had slept soundly for the first time since…since the house on the mountain, when he’d shared a bed with his wife.
His stomach rumbled, and Mei Lin pushed up on one elbow. She glanced at the monitors, his chest, then his face. Whatever she found satisfied her, because she grinned. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
She slid off the bed and stretched—a beautiful sight. “What sounds good? You didn’t eat the omelet yesterday.”
“French toast.”
“You need protein, young man.”
He chuckled, but a stab of pain had him pressing his hand to his ribs. “Cruel woman, making me laugh.”
“I should get you one of those terrible bars you forced me to eat.”
“A donut would be more soothing on my throat.”
She was smiling as she reached for the little book that held the options. “Pancakes?”
“Yes, please.”
“And bacon, because protein, I think.”
“If you insist.” As if he’d ever turn down bacon.
She placed the order, then disappeared into the bathroom. When she returned a few minutes later, she looked fresh and beautiful. Her cheeks were scrubbed, her hair…
“Did you cut your hair?”
“Brooklynn.” Mei Lin uttered the name as if it explained everything. “It isn’t much different.”
Ethan didn’t know hairstyles from mascara blends—did they blend mascara? But her hair had been a little…ragged before. Now, it was a smidge shorter but trimmed expertly, and the bangs sort of blended with the rest of it.
“It looks good.”
She ran her fingers through the strands and sighed. “It will grow. At least it doesn’t look like someone used a…” She uttered a word in Mandarin, shaking her head. “I don’t know the word for a knife that cuts crops.” She mimed what she meant.
“A machete?” He shook his head. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“It was so bad that Brooklynn took one look at me and insisted. We are in the middle of nowhere, but she found a hairdresser to come here while you slept because it was that bad.”
“You were beautiful before, and you’re beautiful now.”
“Ah. You’re still groggy.” Her eyes sparkled. “I’ll tell the nurses to decrease your painkillers.”
“Don’t you dare. I need all the meds they’ll give me.”
Someone knocked, and she went to the door and cracked it, then returned to the bed and kissed his temple. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Where are you going?”
But she walked out, and then the doorway filled with his father.
Gavin looked like he’d aged ten years since Ethan had seen him…whatever day they’d flown to New Hampshire. He hadn’t shaved, and his stubble was gray. Dark skin circled his eyes, and his wrinkles had deepened.
“Geez, you look worse than I do,” Ethan said. “And I got shot.”
His remark earned a smile, but it didn’t hold. Gavin lowered himself into the bedside chair. “Your wife’s giving us a minute.”
“Okay.”
Gavin set his forearms on his knees and studied his own hands.
When he spoke, his voice was rough. “It was my fault they found you. I thought you’d be safe.
The house isn’t in my name, but…” He swallowed.
“Lu Feng knew all about our family. I don’t know how, but he knew about me and my company and Derrick’s plane. ”
“How do you know this?”
“One of the men who was taken into custody—a guy named Yao Bowen—told us.”
Bowen. Was that Bo, the one who’d nearly beaten him to death?
“Lu got the flight plan,” Gavin continued, “and then searched real estate records near where we landed and found the house, owned by Wright Industries, which is…” He pressed his lips flat.
“He found you because of me. You and Mei Lin almost died on that mountain because I was sloppy. Because I wanted you close.”
“You got us out of China.” Ethan pressed the button to raise his head. “You brought us to a safe place—or a place that should’ve been safe. And you sent people to protect us. You saved our lives more than once. You don’t get to turn that into something you owe me for.”
Gavin’s jaw worked, and his eyes turned glassy.
“I was a terrible father.” He seemed to be staring at the floor, or his shoes.
Apparently, at anything but Ethan. “I didn’t know how to be a good dad to you without sacrificing my family.
That’s not an excuse, I know. I wanted to tell the girls about you years ago, but Evelyn…
” His voice trailed, and Ethan got it. Gavin’s loyalty was to his wife, exactly where it needed to be.
“She had five daughters to protect,” Ethan said. “And a marriage to save. That came first.”
“I chose them.” Gavin seemed to force himself to meet Ethan’s eyes. “Over and over, I chose them, and every time I did, it was at your expense. I should have found another way. I should’ve—”
“Dad.”
Gavin’s eyes rounded. Then the corner of his mouth pulled up. “You haven’t called me that—without sarcasm, anyway—since you were nine years old.”
“I can be kind of a jerk.”
Chuckling, his father puffed up like he was proud. “You get that from me.”
“That and a lot of other things, I think. Maybe even some good things.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
The door opened, and Gavin stood and stepped out of the way, dragging a hand down his face.
An orderly set Ethan’s meal on the adjustable table. “You need anything else? More water?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
She was walking out as Mei Lin came in with coffee. “I can wait in the hall if—”
“I’ll be here if you need me.” Gavin squeezed Ethan’s good shoulder and left.
Mei Lin fussed with the food, removing the lid that kept it warm, unrolling the silverware from the napkin. “You okay?”
Okay? That word didn’t cover it. Ethan’s chest was full to splitting, and it had nothing to do with his cracked ribs.
He’d spent his whole life expecting the people who’d claimed they loved him to leave. His father had left, over and over. Even his mother, when she’d married, had left. And Mei Lin… It hadn’t been her choice, but the facts didn’t change how it had felt to, once again, be left alone.
This time, his family had come, every one of them.