Promise Me Light (15 page)

As Cash left for a chair, I watched with numbness as Janice wiped her
hands on a clean towel. They were stained red with blood underneath her
fingernails.

“Eva, get me a needle and some thread. I think they’re in the
first aid kit,” Janice said, motioning to the container.

Eva handed everything over to her as Cash brought in a chair for me.
I sat, never taking my eyes off of Ryder.

Janice poured rubbing alcohol over the needle and thread. “This
isn’t sterilized but it’s the best I can do right now. We need to
get that hole closed ASAP before infection sets in.”

“You sure you can do this?” Gavin asked his mom, looking
pointedly at the tears running down her face.

“I can do it,” she said, sounding exhausted. She sniffed one time
and I knew seeing Ryder lying so still, covered by blood, was becoming
too much for her.

“Why don’t you let me? I know how to suture,” Gavin said,
holding out his hand.

Janice shut her eyes tightly and nodded, handing the needle and
thread to Gavin.

Soon the bullet hole was closed, the old wound was re-bandaged, and
the blood cleaned from his chest. In that time Ryder’s temperature had
climbed.

“The cuts on his back need to be doctored but I don’t want to
move him yet,” Janice muttered, more to herself than to anyone
else.

“How the hell did he get them?” Roger asked, pushing away from
the wall and standing up to his full height. Behind his grey whiskers
and the wrinkles around his eyes, I saw the anger that someone would
hurt his son.

“They look like lash marks,” Gavin answered his dad. “Someone
beat and whipped him. Some of them are scars, others are fresh. Whoever
did this to him has been doing it for a while.”

Oh, God!
The thought of Ryder being beaten was
torture in itself. I forced myself to take a deep breath.
It will be okay. He’ll survive. He’s strong and proud. He
won’t give up so easily.

Janice walked over to me, hugging herself tightly. “He’s not
doing so well, Maddie. We don’t know if that bullet hit anything vital
and he’s lost a lot of blood.” She glanced over at Ryder, lying so
still in the middle of the bed. “The next forty-eight hours will be
touch and go. We need to come to terms with the fact that he may not
make it.”

“No. No,” I said, rising slowly from the chair.

Janice’s bottom lip started to quiver. The emotions she had been
struggling to hold in were unleashed; her silent tears became great sobs
that shook her entire body and made her double over in grief. I quickly
gathered her in my arms, not wanting to see her suffer like I was.

Roger pulled her away from me, wrapping his arms around her.
“Let’s sit for a while. You’re about ready to drop,” he said,
helping her into a chair.

As Roger comforted Janice, I walked to the head of the bed, my focus
only on Ryder. A white bandage was wrapped around his middle. The
tattoos still decorated his body but now they looked stark against his
pale skin. I reached out a shaky hand, afraid to touch him but needing
to feel him on my fingertips. I touched his forehead. It was hot. He was
burning up with fever, another life-threatening problem.

“Did he say anything to you?” Gavin asked, wiping his bloody
hands on a clean towel as he waited on my answer.

“Only my name and that he thought he was dead,” I answered in a
shaky voice.

“You see anyone else?”

I cocked my head to the side, meeting his eyes. “If I had seen
another person don’t you think I would have told you?”

Gavin stared at me, disapproval turning the corners of his mouth
down. I glared back, baiting him to push me further.
Ryder was on death’s doorstep. I didn’t need some stupid
questions thrown my way right now.

“Yeah, but you were upset so maybe you forgot,” Gavin said. He
turned his attention to his dad and Cash. “His gunshot wound only
looks a few hours old. Whoever shot him is close.”

I felt the blood drain from my body. His words brought an image of an
entire army racing through the woods, guns raised and war cries echoing
through the area. Out for Ryder’s blood.

“Either some random person shot him…” Cash began.

“Or they are hunting him,” Gavin finished, staring fixedly at
Cash.

I saw a silent message pass between them, one that made me
nervous.

“I’m on it.” Cash turned and crossed the room, his long legs
making short work of the hardwood floor. On the way out he picked up his
cowboy hat and sat it on top of his head, pulling the brim down low.

“I’ll check the house and barns,” Roger added, placing a hand
on Janice’s shoulder before leaving.

After his dad left Gavin scrubbed a hand over his face, the wheels
turning in his mind. Finally, he faced Eva. “Where’s Brody?”

“I…I don’t know,” she answered with uncertainty.

He headed for the door, his stride swift. “You two stay here. If he
wakes up, try to get him to drink some water. He’s dehydrated and with
that fever he will need to stay hydrated.” He glanced over his
shoulder at Eva. “I’m going to find Brody then we’ve got to circle
the wagons. If the terrorists are hunting Ryder, he brought them
straight to us.”

Eva and I stared at each other as Gavin left, trying to comprehend
what was happening. Ryder was on death’s doorstep and terrorists might
be tracking him, throwing us all into danger.

Eva glanced around the room and shifted to her other foot. I could
tell she didn’t know what to do. Brody was missing and we may be under
attack. I knew her well enough to know that like me, she needed to stay
busy to focus on something to distract her from the growing crisis.
Spotting the bloody towels on the floor, she bent over to gather
them.

“I’m going to go get rid of these rags,” she said, walking
toward the door.

I heard her but my focus was on Ryder. Knowing I wasn’t alone in my
anguish, I glanced over at Janice, sitting quietly in a chair. Her face
was in her hands, hidden behind her fingers.

“Janice?” I asked, hesitantly.

She dropped her hands away and looked up at me, despair in her
eyes.

“Maddie, oh God, Maddie. I should have told him. He deserved to
know the truth,” she cried, climbing to her feet. “Now he’ll never
know.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, warily.

“I had a sister,” she began, wiping her tears away. “She was
wild, always refusing to follow anyone’s rules. She did what she
wanted, when she wanted, and with whom she wanted. Sound
familiar?”

I nodded, surprised I had never heard her talk about a sister
before.

“She was five years younger than me. My parents couldn’t control
her and I couldn’t either. She was always in trouble and eventually
dropped out of high school. I didn’t see her very much after that. She
was in and out of rehab for either drugs or alcohol most of the time,
and when she wasn’t in rehab, she moved around a lot. But one day, I
got a phone call. She was in the hospital. I thought she was hurt or in
trouble, but she was calling to say she was having a baby. Gavin was
three at the time. I grabbed him and rushed to the city, desperate to
see my sister - and her new baby. It had been almost a year since I had
seen her.”

Janice’s gaze turned distant, remembering the past. “I walked
into the hospital room and there was my sister and a tiny baby boy. He
was beautiful with the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He looked so much
like Gavin that it was almost like I was looking at my own baby.”

I glanced at Ryder lying so still in the bed. My heart pounded
harder. I knew where this was going.

“She wouldn’t touch him. She refused to look at him and begged me
to take him. She insisted she didn’t want anyone tying her down. Not
even her own flesh and blood.” Janice reached down to tuck the sheet
around Ryder’s legs. “So later that day we took him home. Ryder’s
been ours since then.”

It all made sense now. Everything. Why Ryder didn’t think he
belonged in his family. Why he never felt he was as good as Gavin in his
parents’ eyes. He’d always said he didn’t fit in with them, that
his parents looked at him differently. Janice and Roger must have seen
his real mother in him - someone wild and untamed. A person that
didn’t follow the rules and didn’t mind paying the consequences for
it.

“Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked. “He had a right to
know.”

Janice shook her head and started gathering the first aid equipment,
placing it back into the box with jerky movements. “No one knows, not
even Gavin. I tried to get my sister to move in with us after she was
discharged from the hospital but she refused. I think she was afraid of
getting close to anyone, including her baby. A few weeks later I tracked
her down. She was staying a few towns away, trashed and sleeping in a
rundown motel room with a bunch of other people. She became angry,
screaming at me for finding her. So I left. After that, I only saw her
one more time. She was strung out and hardly knew who I was.”

“I’m so sorry, Janice,” I said softly.

Her eyes filled with tears again. She brushed them away and
continued. “When Ryder was two, I got a phone call. She had died from
an overdose. Roger and I just thought that Ryder didn’t need to know
about the adoption. He was ours. We had raised him from the time he was
only a few hours old. It didn’t matter anymore who had given birth to
him. He was our son.”

“He looks just like you and Gavin,” I said, trying to comprehend
everything she was saying.

“My sister was my spitting image. I have no idea who Ryder’s
father was. I don’t think she even knew.”

“Is that what you meant when you said he’s just like
her
?” I asked.

“Yes. Every time Ryder came home drunk or covered in bruises from a
fight, I saw my sister in him. She had no qualms about putting herself
in danger and neither did he. I saw her attitude each time he rebelled,
every time he pushed the limits. He has her passion for life but also
her recklessness. She was a good person deep down. She was just
lost.”

Janice reached out and touched my cheek, her fingers cold on my skin.
“My sister had no one, refusing to let anyone get close to her. But
Ryder has had you all these years, keeping him grounded. I watched you
play together as kids. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You’re the
only person he lets in. He may be hard to get along with and rough
around the edges but he loves you more than anything.”

The tears ran down my face, saddened for the baby that was unwanted
by his own mother. The child that thought he didn’t belong. The man
that still hurt.

“When he wakes up, I’ll tell him. I have to, I just hope he will
forgive us for keeping the truth from him.” She wet a washcloth and
handed it to me. “Keep him as cool as possible, Maddie. If he’s
temperature gets too high…”

I took the washcloth from her, nodding numbly. I knew that if his
internal temperature rose above 105
°
F, his brain
cells would start dying. His heart would work harder to pump blood to
his extremities. Eventually, his organs would cease functioning. He
would die. That thought made my throat suddenly close up, choking me.
Taking all the air from the room.

With a shaky hand I held the wet washcloth limply and stared down at
Ryder’s pale face. His hair was long and tangled. Dirt encrusted every
strand and made the beard around his face stiff. I didn’t know what to
do, where to begin. I felt helpless and scared.

But I had to be strong. Feeling a renewed sense of purpose, I started
wiping the grime on Ryder’s face, wanting desperately to see the man I
loved beneath the dirt.

My gaze roamed down his chest, seeing the dried blood. Wetting the
washcloth again, I gently ran it over his collarbone then down his
abdomen. As the blood disappeared, the bruises on his body became more
apparent. He had been beaten so badly, I was almost afraid to touch
him.

My eyes moved down the strong muscles of his arm, stopping on his
hand. Reaching out, I turned his palm over, cringing when I saw the
small nicks and cuts on his skin. Some were deep while others were razor
thin cuts. I ran my fingertips over his rough palm, remembering his
hands on me. Touching, tormenting, and saving me.

I can’t believe he’s really back.
It was
like I was dreaming. If I was, I never wanted to wake up.

I heard Janice leave the room but I didn’t move or let go of
Ryder’s hand. With my heart in my throat, I laced my fingers through
his. Holding his hand tightly, I brought it to me, pressing his palm to
my stomach.

He was once a baby unwanted and unloved. He was a little boy lost.
Now he was a man found. One that I needed and so did our baby.

“You’re going to be a father, Ryder,” I whispered, grasping his
fingers tightly. “I need you. Stay with me,
please
. I love you too much to let you go.”

There was no answer. No grasping of my fingers. No murmur of my name.
Only the stillness of him, lying there struggling to live.

I prayed. I pleaded. I swore never to doubt miracles again. I cried
so much those first few days that I felt empty. Dried up.

We had found him but he was still lost to us.

I watched as he fought infection. I struggled to keep him alive. I
fought with the fever that raged through his body, threatening to take
him from me. But I had hope that he would get better. And this time,
hope won out.

On the eighth day Ryder’s fever broke for the first time since he
had returned home.

I was sitting by his bedside, my eyes dropping with exhaustion. No
longer able to hold them open, I drifted off, so tired that I felt as if
I was in a daze. My chin rested in my hand, my elbow on the arm of the
chair. As I was slipping into sleep, my head fell back, jerking me
awake. Trying to find more comfortable position, I curled into a tight
ball, tugging my feet beneath me and snuggling into the warmth of the
chair. In seconds I was asleep.