Sacred Hart (21 page)

The bacon grease snapped and the smell of it was heavy, making me nauseous for some reason. I was glad today was Friday. With the holidays over, this would be the first weekend Maggie and I had off together. She’d had to work New Year’s Eve, and I’d spent the night with Beth and Cornelia instead. New Year’s was always a holiday I hated, even before Birdie died. I thought it was depressing. It should’ve felt like a progression but to me, it felt like I was always forgetting something. However, this year was different. This year I watched as Beth counted down till midnight, shouting with Cornelia as the ball dropped. I could honestly say it was the first New Year’s I had ever enjoyed. My smile faltered as another wave of nausea stirred the acid in my stomach.

Tony’s laugh drifted through the room as he opened the kitchen door. “Just give me a second, Officer Reynolds. I’ll pack that up for you gentlemen.” His smile fell as he took me in. “You look like shit, Ryan.”

“I feel like shit.” I wiped the sweat off my forehead.

It was hot as hell in the kitchen, or it should’ve been. My skin was clammy, and as I moved to the kitchen sink to wash my hands, a chill broke across my flesh. I hadn’t really felt that great for some time. It started just after Christmas. I’d caught a cold, and I figured it was just my luck to get the flu. My headaches were at an all-time high, but today was different. The pain in my chest made me anxious, and as I walked to the sink, I felt short of breath. I hadn’t had a panic attack like this in a while, and I wasn’t sure why I was having one now.

“I’ll get the breakfast sandwiches bagged up. Lou is entertaining the boys with her gossip. Why don’t you take a break?” Tony’s voice was filled with concerned.

I turned the water on and rested my hands on the edge of the stainless steel sink. My head fell forward as the vice in my chest tightened. The sound of the paper bag crumpling under Tony’s touch nagged at my brain. I tried to breathe through the panic like I used to, but it didn’t help.

“Fuck.” I grabbed my left arm as a sharp pain radiated down my bicep.

“Ryan?” Tony’s voice was hollow, but I could hear the fear as I turned to look at him.

My arm hurt like hell, but the fire in my chest was growing, and the space in my lungs was decreasing. I rubbed my fist into my sternum to try and alleviate a bit of the pressure. I could see Tony’s mouth moving, his eyes wide as he moved toward me. My vision clouded, and I saw specs of dust floating in the air as the pain moved up my neck and seized my throat. I let the dread consume me as I saw Tony run for the door. The pain moved to my knees as the hard, unforgiving floor met them with a crash. The last thing I saw, before all the light was taken, before my world ended, was Officer Tate Evans, and it was then I had a moment of clarity.

Maggie.

It was the only word that came with me into the dark.

Two blue lines. My heart raced as I stared at the small piece of life-changing plastic. Two freaking blue lines. I counted back in my head and remembered… each morning I took that damn pill.

But there were still… two blue lines.

“Well, shit, Maggie, the suspense is killing me.” Laurie’s voice echoed off the tile flooring in the staff locker room.

I was trapped inside my head. My period was late. Very late. I‘d been nauseous for a while, a little over emotional, sure… but pregnant? I hadn’t worried, I hadn’t thought for one second that it was even a possibility. I was on the pill. The pill which isn’t one hundred percent, but still, I took it exactly as instructed by my doctor. I made sure to take it each day, well, maybe not at the same time every day, but, I was compliant. It wasn’t until my breasts started to ache that I finally gave into my intuition and Laurie. I’d been at work for maybe an hour before she started hounding me about my hunch. The pharmacy in the hospital opened, and I bought the test in an effort to quiet my overactive brain.

My hands shook as I dropped them to my belly. The fear started to make my stomach twist into unruly knots. Ryan had just started to feel safe with me; we’d begun something so beautiful, and he’d lost so much already. The questions in the back of my head fueled my insecurities.
Could he be a father again? Would he even want that? Was he ready?

“Mags?” The door to the bathroom stall opened, and I felt Laurie’s hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I know, I’m just nervous. I love him so much, and I never wanted to push him, but, Laurie, this… this is shoving him.” I picked up the pregnancy test in my hand and threw it in the garbage next to the toilet with a little more aggression than was probably necessary before I turned to face her. “What if—”

“Maggie,” Laurie said in a disapproving tone. She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “You know he loves you. He lost his daughter… he’s trying to build a life… he loves Beth… he’ll love this kid, too.” Her eyes fell to my stomach.

“But what if he doesn’t… what if…” I didn’t want to think it, let alone speak it. My throat constricted, and my upper lip began to tremble. I was barely holding it together, but at least the tears hadn’t begun to fall. “What if he feels guilty for making another child? What if he feels like having this baby is like me trying to replace Belle?”

She exhaled and brought her eyes to mine. “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you. Those are questions for him to answer. No matter what, though, you have to take care of you and Beth… and now this one, so just be prepared, Maggie.” Her smile was appeasing. “If you want my honest opinion, after seeing you guys together on Christmas… I’d be surprised if that promise ring isn’t replaced with something more permanent as soon as you tell him.”

The corners of my mouth gradually lifted into an unsure smile. I raised my left hand and brought my gaze to the infinity symbol. Ryan was everything to me. I’d let myself fall so completely in love with him, with all that he was, and I hoped the terror in my chest was just my old ghosts trying to drag me down. I nodded my head, and my mouth broke into a full smile. Ryan had given me a promise, and I needed to trust that. He didn’t know it yet, but he’d given me a piece of himself — this tiny blessed portion of his soul — and I felt lucky to be the one keeping it safe.

“You’re right,” I said as I let my eyes meet hers.

“I know.” She gave me a cocky grin, and I laughed lightly.

“I wish I could go home. I can’t wait here all day. It’ll make me crazy. I need to talk to Ryan.” We moved from the bathroom stall out to the main locker room.

“Go home sick. I don’t think they’ve called off the on-call nurse yet.”

“They haven’t?”

“I don’t think so. Go talk to the charge nurse, Mags. I’m sure Marissa will understand.” Laurie grabbed her stethoscope from the bench and handed me mine as well.

The idea of leaving was winning me over. I wanted to see Ryan. I needed to feel his hands on my waist, hear his voice telling me it would all be okay. I wanted him to tell me we were a family and that we could make it work.

“I’m going to go, I think,” I said as we made our way through the locker room door and back out onto the main ER floor.

“Good. I’m going to go check on triage. Say bye before you go?”

“I will.”

Laurie walked away, and as I made my way to the charge nurse desk, the overhead intercom beeped three times indicating a code. The operator’s voice droned out a Code Cardiac Alert, and all hopes of leaving flew out the window. I moved quickly to the ambulance bay where the rest of my team was waiting. Marissa was there, and she rattled off the report. Male. Thirty–three. Possible MI in route. I didn’t fail to notice that the guy was young, too young to be having a heart attack. I hated codes like this. He was probably married, had a few kids, and I always prayed it wasn’t someone I knew from town. I loved my job, I liked saving people, but it was situations like these that made my job difficult sometimes. Thirty-three was way too young, maybe it was the hormones kicking up a fuss in my head, but something in my stomach started to hollow out at the first sound of sirens blaring in the distance.

“The Cath lab is ready,” Blaine said out of breath. He was a new nurse to the code team, and I could see the excitement in his eyes.

A police car pulled up first in the roundabout, leaving just enough space for the ambulance. Tate jumped out of the car, his eyes were wide and rimmed with red, his hands were in his hair, and when he spotted me, he stopped dead in his tracks. The wild worry in his eyes jump started my heart and filled my chest with bricks. The ambulance was close; I could see the lights and the sirens grew louder with each deliberate step Tate took toward me.

“Maggie, get inside.” He grabbed my arm just as the ambulance pulled into the roundabout. “Fuck, Maggie, now,” he growled, and pulled me with all his might away from the open bay doors.

Tate tried to drag me further away. “Stop.
Stop
,” I shouted. “What the hell, Tate?”

He shook his head. “Please, Maggie, let me talk to you in here,” his plea was more desperate as the paramedics moved from the vehicle and opened the back doors.

The wheels of the gurney hit the ground, and I could hear them turn as they moved along the asphalt. It was a grated sound, and the plastic against the surface of the driveway set my teeth on edge as a foreboding shudder rippled through me. It was then when it all hit me… Male… thirty-three… Tate’s horrified expression, and the sorrow in his eyes when he saw me. My legs became lead, and my eyes trained on the doors. All I could hear was the whoosh of my pulse inside my head. The ER noise, Tate’s pleas, and the voices of my team faded as they wheeled
him
in. The first images burned into my brain as I watched one of the men breathe life into
his
lungs with a bag and mask, while the other held two bags of fluid that drained valuable medicine into
his
veins.

“Ryan,” I spoke in a dry whisper. The watch, my gift, it was there, displayed on his left wrist. I swallowed down the bile, and I fought back the vertigo. Tate was speaking quickly to my charge nurse, and when her eyes locked on mine, everything came into focus. “
Ryan!
” I didn’t recognize the curdled terror in my own voice as I screamed his name.

Tate wrapped his arms around my waist as my knees buckled. I shook my head and gathered myself. “No!” I needed to see him. I wanted to feel his skin one more time before they took him away. I wanted to kiss his forehead and tell him he would be fine. I wanted to fall to the ground and beg Belle to send him away when he came to her. “No!” My fists pounded against Tate’s chest as I fought. I couldn’t leave him. I scratched at his neck, and I kicked my legs as he lifted me and pulled me away from Ryan.

“Jesus, Maggie, calm down and listen.” Tate’s low voice broke through my meltdown.

Hot tears poured from my eyes and wet my cheeks as he set me back on my feet in the family consult room. They brought people into this room to tell them the bad news, to tell them the only person they ever loved was dead. “Oh God.” I turned hastily as I grabbed the trash can by the door, and my stomach emptied with a violent burst. The acrid taste made me dry heave.

Tate’s hand rested on the small of my back. “Maggie, I … we did everything—”

“Stop.” I couldn’t breathe. I placed the trash can on the ground and moved away from his touch. I let my body dissolve into one of the vinyl chairs lining the room’s back wall. I didn’t want to hear how they’d done everything they could. If he was dead, then they didn’t do enough.

“We were getting breakfast, and Tony came out of the kitchen hollering for help.” Tate knelt down in front of me forcing me to meet his eyes. “He’s got a pulse, Mags. They think he had a heart attack, but they said the CPR I did saved his life.”

I lifted my chin and stared at the wall behind him. “For now.” I knew more than I ever wanted to know. All the scenarios, outcomes, and prognoses strangled me as I tried to picture his face, his smile, and his lips on mine. He could be a corpse with a pulse.
How long had he been down? How long without oxygen to the brain and vital organs? What was the damage like to his heart? What if they couldn’t repair the blockage? What if it was worse than any stent or balloon could fix? What if he never wakes up?
A loud sob tore from my lips, and my head fell forward into my palms. My shoulders shook as I cried. I hadn’t cried like this since my parents’ death, but this was different. Ryan’s loss filled me with empty agony. I’d never felt so alone.

“I’m sorry.” Tate’s voice was full of sadness, and it took all of my strength to raise my head so I could look at him. He held my face in between his hands and another series of sobs wracked through me as he pulled me into a hug.

The warmth of his body wouldn’t permeate into mine. I felt cold, but the gesture reminded me that if it wasn’t for Tate, Ryan could have died on that kitchen floor. “Thank you… for helping him,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

He pulled away, and the fabric of his uniform was damp from my tears. “I’m no doctor, Maggie, but Ryan is a tough guy. He’ll fight this.”

I nodded my head and tried to control my ragged breathing. Tate was sweet, and he was trying to give me hope, but he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know him like I did. I could hear Ryan’s voice in my head, it was clear… and adamant.
“If I had the chance to be with Belle again, I’d take it.”