CHAPTER 33
Claire
Heart in her throat, Claire stepped through the doors of the small, private hospital.
After she’d hung up with Adam, she’d blindly thrown some things into a carry-on and rushed to the airport, managing to snag a seat on the last flight to Las Vegas.
Bless Southwest for offering direct flights, and bless the man who had renounced his ticket in her favor when Claire had haltingly explained her plight to the ticket agent.
Her heels clicked on the slick floor as she approached the information desk.
The young receptionist smiled. “How may I help you?”
Claire swallowed. “I’m here to see Ian Larssen.”
God. She was in a nightmare, only it was real.
The woman checked her computer and frowned, then looked at Claire, her gaze full of sympathy. “Are you family?”
Claire didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
The girl gave her a penetrating stare and was about to say something, but Claire flattened her hands on the counter and leaned forward. “Please.”
Whatever the woman read in her face made her reconsider the refusal she seemed about to give her. “Name?”
“Claire Bur … Claire.”
The girl nodded, then quickly printed out a visitor’s pass. “Third floor.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
With shaking fingers, she accepted the name tag, peeled off the back, and as she moved to put it on, she realized what it read: Claire Larssen.
·
The first thing she spotted when she walked into the room was his beautiful, bright hair. Claire took one look at Ian, and everything in her body and soul went numb.
Ian lay there unmoving, except for his chest rising and falling, every breath pushed into him by a machine.
A monitor by his side displayed his vitals.
Tubes crisscrossed his chest, and another was in his mouth, secured by a strap across his face.
His middle finger had something clamped on it, and an IV line snaked out of a stand, dripping from a clear bag into his arm.
Her gaze drifted to the nearby monitor, which displayed multiple things, to focus on the green line that silently spiked with each heartbeat. Not long ago, she’d listened to that heartbeat, her ear pressed to his chest.
Her throat closed.
Oh my God. Ian.
She sank into a chair beside him, unable to wrap her brain around the horror in front of her eyes.
This isn’t real. It’s not real.
“You can talk to him,” a woman’s voice came from behind her.
Claire turned to see Ian’s sister-in-law, Eve, a somber look on her pretty face.
“He might be able to hear you, and it could help.”
Claire nodded dumbly, her gaze flicking from Ian’s motionless form to Eve’s pained face.
“What happened?”
Something flashed in Eve’s big brown eyes. “Are you sure you want to know?”
·
“What did you do, Ian?” Claire asked in a shaky whisper. “What did you do?”
Claire had lost track of time, sitting by Ian’s side and watching, hoping for any sign of movement, any eyelid flutter, any muscle twitch.
Nothing. Ian still wasn’t waking up.
Images of him drifted across her mind like a slide show.
Ian, bantering with her in that bar, holding out his hand as he invited her upstairs for champagne.
Ian letting a puppy eat his food and lick him in the face.
Ian twirling her around the dance floor with ease and grace, his warm lips pressed to her ear as he sang.
Sweeping her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing.
Flying a jet. Kissing her senseless. Looking hotter than sin in leathers, taking her for a ride on his bike.
Ian, murmuring sweet endearments as she fell apart under his powerful body.
Her heart swelled painfully in her chest. “Why did you do this?”
Oh, she knew why. And he hadn’t even said a thing. He’d gone and secretly put himself through this, and if it hadn’t gone so wrong, she never would have known.
Beautiful, kindhearted, noble Ian. Had he never met her, this wouldn’t have happened to him.
Guilt ate at her stomach like acid. She stared at his still face.
What if he never wakes up?
Fear descended on her like a sheet of ice sliding slowly down her back.
No. No, no, no.
He had to wake up; he had to.
She rejected any other scenario with everything she had.
Eve placed a bottle of orange juice on the overbed table and slipped an arm around Claire’s shoulders. “He’d want you to eat. Or, at the very least, drink.”
“Thank you. I’ll try.” Claire managed to smile at Eve, who had been her constant companion and a great support since she’d arrived twelve hours ago. Eve had helped alleviate her fears, informing her about what was happening.
“I have good news. The EEG, head CT scan, and blood work they did came back normal. Everything looks fine. They’re going to try to extubate him in a little while. It’s better that he breathes on his own.”
Claire nodded. Thank God that awful tube was coming out of his throat. “Why do you think this happened to him?”
Eve gently adjusted Ian’s sheet. “It’s called delayed emergence. His body is having a hard time ridding itself of the anesthesia.”
“Because he got an extra dose?”
“Maybe.”
“When he woke up during the harvest … do you think he felt pain?”
Eve didn’t reply and looked away. A prickly ball blocked Claire’s throat, and she pressed her fist to her mouth, not quite managing to silence a sob.
Eve’s brown eyes were full of sympathy. “Claire … you’ve been sitting there since you got here. You could go to the penthouse and disconnect for a bit. Lie down a little, take a shower. It’s OK to take a break.”
“Maybe I will.”
Not a chance. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not until she saw his beautiful blue eyes open.
“Tell me he’s going to come out of this.”
“He’s young and healthy. The odds are in his favor.”
“Will he be OK?”
“From what I’ve researched, he should be fine and fully recover once he wakes up.” Eve patted Claire’s hand. “I have to go to work now, but Adam landed a half hour ago and is on his way.” Eve stopped in the doorway. “Please try to drink the juice at least. Get some vitamin C.”
“OK.” Carefully, Claire reached to stroke Ian’s silky hair, remembering all the times she’d thrilled in running her fingers through it. She traced his eyebrow with her fingertip.
“Ian. Mom is doing well. The doctor said she took the marrow well—” Her voice broke, and she swallowed a few times, struggling to regain composure.
She wasn’t about to fall apart. If he could hear her, he needed to hear encouraging things.
“He said this may cure her. So, if you wanted to be a hero, you’ve succeeded.
But you’re in big trouble, sir, for doing this behind my back, although I think I understand why. ”
She drew a shuddering breath. “You have to fight your way out of this. I need you. So very much. I couldn’t bear it if …”
Her voice trailed off. How could she go on living if something happened to him? She couldn’t envision a world without him in it.
Her world without him in it.
Ian. Her world.
The realization clicked like the last piece of an intricate puzzle.
“Please wake up, Ian,” she whispered. “Come back to me. I love you.”
Ian
He pushed off the bottom of the ocean, kicking his feet as he spiraled toward the surface. The water felt warm and strangely thick. He made slow progress but kept kicking, his face tilted up toward the distant glimmering light.
The need to breathe outweighed all else. His throat burned, and his chest felt ready to explode.
Strange sounds reverberated in his ears. Gurgling. Garbled voices. He kicked harder, spiraling up, up toward that light. Now it was red and green. Flashing.
And there were voices. Soft at first, then growing louder. In the background, the whine of a turbine.
He moved upward, spinning slowly with his ascent, and it was an effort to move his arms, as if he were swimming in syrup.
He needed to move faster, so he kicked. Just when he thought he’d reached the surface, the water engulfed him again.
“Ian.”
Who was that?
“Ian, please wake up.”
The voice was far away but so familiar.
“Ian, I know you’re in there. Do you hear me?”
I hear you.
“Ian!”
His head broke the surface, and he opened his mouth wide, gasping, greedily sucking in deep lungfuls of air past the inferno in his throat. It felt as if he’d swallowed boiling tar.
A soft hand in his. He squeezed it.
“He’s waking up!”
He made a Herculean effort and dragged his leaden eyelids open.
Where was he?
His vision focused, grew blurry, then focused again. A red-haired angel sat by his side, surrounded by a halo of white light.
Too bright.
His eyelids drifted closed.
The hand squeezed his, and he felt warm lips press to his knuckles. “Ian. Look at me, please!”
He opened his eyes again. She was beautiful. And sad. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled, rolling slowly down her flushed cheeks.
Claire. Penny.
He swallowed against the fireball ravaging the back of his throat and tried his damnedest to make his lips form a smile.
People drifted in, so many of them, surrounding him.
“About time you woke up, sluggard.”
Adam. That was Adam.
His gaze drifted from one person to the other, and Ian recognized his family, all gathered around him, looking down on him with various expressions of worry and concern. Dragging air into his lungs, he licked his lips, which felt as parched as if he’d been hiking in the Mojave.
“What’d I miss?”