Truth and Humility (38 page)

Now, Herb didn’t know whether to be angry or proud.  It could only mean she’d graduate sooner.  Reigning in his desire to turn her over his knee, he only nodded.  “Figures.”  His chin began to tremble.  “You’re the most stubborn…pig-headed child.”

She swallowed and wiped her eyes.  “I’ll work on that.”  And she threw her arms around his neck, hugged him tightly until he returned her embrace.  “I love you, Pop.  I know you’re only getting me out of town because of Austin, but it doesn’t matter.  This is what I’ve wanted for so long.”

“Then promise me you’ll never go near that Cahill boy again,” he begged, the sound muffled against her nec
k.  “I’d like to stay above ground a little longer.”

She backed up and rested her hands on his shoulders.  “I know.  And it won’t be a problem.  It’s over between us.”

“I assume he found out you were behind his fiancé’s death, not Derek?”

Her lungs filled with air.  How much had he learned recently and from whom?  “The same time I did.  And he isn’t the forgiving type.”

Herb didn’t look satisfied.  “But what if he does forgive you?  Especially now that you saved his life.”

  Danny shook her head and shoved her hands back in her pockets.  “It won’t matter.  I know now that this feud will always win no matter what kind of good intentions are offered up from either side.”

Satisfied, Herb put his arm around her shoulders and turned her back toward the truck.  “Good.  We’ve all learned the same lesson, Danny, both the Bennetts and the Cahills.  At this point, after so many years, the best thing we can do is just stay out of each other’s way.”  After a few more long strides, he added, “And if that son-of-a-bitch has knocked you up, I’m going to shit-can everything I just said.”

Austin sat up in the hospital bed, slowly swung his feet to the cold floor and attempted to untangle the IV lines from the bedrail.  There were shouts coming from the hall.  Angry, heated words that vibrated through the closed door to his private room.

The fact he’d only suffered blood loss and no serious internal injuries enabled him to recover quickly.  He’d received six units of O-positive, ten stitches to his inner muscle lining and twenty staples to the skin.  If all went well, he’d go home tomorrow where Ruth threatened to nurse him back to health until he was ready to get back to work.  If he could stand his sister’s company that long.  The woman was ruthless inw Rulurs her quest to shame him for bedding a Bennett.  The fact she didn’t tear into him for letting the Bennett into the sacred library baffled him enough to question her priorities.

Apparently, Ruth hadn’t known about the library incident and he quickly suffered for the slip.   But if the library door had been locked by the time she found Danny in his bed...who could have closed it?

It was a legitimate question, one that prompted Ruth to blab everything to their mother.  And
that
woman’s incessant scolding opened wounds much deeper than the one in his side as he lay trapped, strung up to a hospital bed with no emergency exit.

How could you let that Bennett trash into our ancestral home!  Maybe you aren’t to be trusted with that place, maybe Ruth and Winston should move in.  Is that what you want?  Next time you pull something like that I’ll cut you off, is that clear?  Austin!  Are you listening to me?

It didn’t seem to matter to Patricia Cahill that her son had almost died.  Or that the “Bennett trash” she referred to had just saved his life.  Undoubtedly, her embarrassment over such a scandal took priority over the accident itself, now that it was over and Austin was out of the woods.

This time.

If it hadn’t been an accident…if someone had sabotaged the blender to break loose when he was inside it…  Well, all he could do for now was hope the detectives who’d interviewed him earlier that morning could find out for him.  Being stuck in a hospital, helpless and weak, was torture.  Mac, Sue, Frank and half the crew had been in to see him earlier that morning and he’d been trapped.  Forced to endure the endless stream of tasteless blender jokes.  All the classics.  Frog in a blender, baby in a blender – and of course, the revised – boss in a blender.  Ha-ha.

Finally out of bed, Austin reached for the brown robe that his sister had flung over the chair and slipped it on.  Damned IV tube.  Everything was hard with the blasted thing attached to his hand.  Since he didn’t have slippers, his bare feet moved over the cold linoleum and toward the door.  He opened it, peeked outside.  His eyebrows rose as he witnessed the heated exchange between his mother and an older man with glasses and wavy hair.  The man was red-faced with temper, shouting accusations and pointing at her.  What had she done to piss him off?

Then Austin began to follow the argument and his guts lurched with dread.

“I know your family was behind this somehow!” the man accused hotly.  “Eye-for-an-eye, right?  You think my kids had something to do with your son’s accident, but I’ll remind you they
saved his life!”

“What’s going on,” Austin interrupted, moving protectively between the man he now knew as the notorious Herb Bennett and his mother.  “What happened?”

Herb shook with anger, his face contorting with the rage of a protective father.  “Did.&nad been you think you could get away with it just because you’re stuck in this damned hospital, kid?”

“Get away with what?”

Patricia chimed in impudently from behind him.  “This…this
man
thinks you had something to do with his son’s accident.”

Austin’s eyebrows came down in confusion.  “What accident?”

“The one that’s landed my boy in ICU!” Herb raged.  “And don’t pretend you don’t know anything about it!  You have enough
friends
who would be perfectly willing to do your dirty work for you whether you’re out of commission or not!”

“Derek?” Austin guessed, looking back at his mother for confirmation.  “Are you talking about Derek?  He’s here?”

Herb pinched his lips and flexed his fists at his sides, paced back and forth so as not to throw a punch.  “And a lot worse off than you, unfortunately.  He may not make it, does that satisfy you?”

Dread washed over him and Austin, without thinking, moved toward the elevators.

“Don’t even think about it, Cahill!”

The old man grabbed his arm.  Austin sawed his teeth from the pain.  Patricia, noting the telltale pulse in her son’s neck, went into protective mode and hit Herb with her purse.

“Let go of him, you heathen.  Can’t you see he’s in no shape to fight with anyone, or even do this awful thing you’re accusing him of?  My son would never sink so low as to cause someone harm, not even to that dreadful boy of yours.”

Nurses and orderlies rushed to the scene and attempted to break up the small tussle.  Taking advantage of the distraction, Austin moved toward the open elevator door and slipped inside unnoticed.  His mother could hold her own against Herb Bennett.  The fact that Derek was in ICU took precedence over all else.

What had happened?  Was it a climbing accident?  A work related accident?  Was Danny anywhere near her brother when he was injured?  Was she hurt, too?  Though Herb hadn’t mentioned her, it could just mean she wasn’t as badly injured as Derek.

Austin took a deep cleansing breath and leaned against the handrail for support.  He was getting dizzy, but he had to find out the answers to his questions.  The bell chimed and the elevator door came open.  He stepped out into the hall, moved past the waiting area.  Danny was nowhere in sight, but there were plenty of Bennetts occupying the chairs, some embracing, some crying, some comforting others.  The grief was atmospheric.

Double doors down the hall opened.  An older woman was escorted out on the arm of a man who sported the Bennett coloring.  The woman, assuming she was the mother, was in tears, clutching a handkerchng his aief tightly in her fist.

The rules of the ICU included that patients have only one or two visitors at a time.  Austin continued down the hall and pushed open the double doors.  He stopped at the nurse’s desk.  “Derek Bennett?” he asked, and after a quick look to make sure there was no one else in room ten, the nurse waved him in.

The rooms were situated in a circle in order to keep a closer eye on the patients.  No doors, just curtains, amplifying the countless machines that filled the hub with various beeps and hissing sounds.  It intimidated the hell out of him more than any place he’d ever been.  Even the blender.  But Austin tentatively reached out and pulled the curtain back.

What he expected, he didn’t know.  Coma?  Mummy in a body cast?  Disfiguring lumps and bruises?  Maybe all of the above, but nothing prepared Austin for this.

Dear God.

The pitiful form in the bed held no resemblance to the effervescent force that was Derek Bennett.  The face had a vacant look in sleep, like the old fashioned photos of wanted men after their execution.  But upon closer look, the same light scruff covered the lower half of the face.  The crooked nose was unmistakably the one Austin himself had broken nine years prior.  Disheveled brown hair...the same color as Danny’s.

Mummy in a body cast would have been a blessing.  It would have at least disassociated this careful conglomeration of plastic bracing and metal rods from Derek.

“What happened to you?” Austin breathed, his voice hitching from the anvil in his chest.  Derek’s torso was wrapped in a plastic casing from pelvis to neck, indicating a broken back.  A metal halo device had been screwed into his skull, indicating a broken neck.  More metal protruded from his right forearm while the left arm was encased in a plaster cast up to the pit.  No telling what all that was beneath the blankets.  Tubes and cords piled out from beneath the bedding that led to machines, bags, meters.  One of them arced out of his nose, looped toward the back where a canister collected stomach fluids.  Another supplied oxygen.

Never in Austin’s life did he miss his childhood friend more than at that moment.  Each foreign object holding Derek’s broken body together represented crushing regret for the years they’d missed.  The years they’d fought.  So many wasted years they could have...
should
have...been brothers.

Careful not to make a scene in such a capricious environment, Herb glared at the man standing at his son’s bedside.  The Cahill kid was on his feet, larger than life, virile even in sickness.  Hate flooded him for the injustice of it all.  He approached silently, opened his mouth to spew forth the first heated thought that came to mind.

But then he watched those wide shoulders move in a silent, wracking sob.  The dark head slowly sank between them.  Large knuckles grew white as they clutched the rolling IV stand for support.  Herb stood still for a moment, watched the anguish that shook the man before him.  “A littlep; casi late for regret, don’t you think?”

Instead of getting angry and firing back, the Cahill kid didn’t move, didn’t respond.  For one scant second, Herb felt a jolt of compassion for him.  But then he remembered a sixteen-year-old Derek coming home with a bloody face and a broken heart.  The terror that broke through the tough façade when he’d been carted to the police station for questioning regarding Rena’s death.  The sacrifices he’d made for Danny, the shots he took from the Cahills – blow after blow after blow – each one of them bravely absorbed in order to protect his sister from the feud.

Do you love him?

The look of abject misery on his daughter’s face when she couldn’t deny it.  The thought of what this man had done with Danny...
to
Danny...to his little girl...

And the compassion burnt to cinders of smoldering rage.  “Go ahead,” he rumbled with hatred.  “Get your fill.  Take it all in, Cahill, because now is the only chance you’ll ever get.  And afterward – if I even smell you on this floor – I’ll finish the job that blender couldn’t and open you from stem to stern.”

From stem to stern.  The final words from his father’s mouth penetrated the hazy layers of consciousness.  Things were off.  He felt drugged, not himself, too much weight holding him down for some reason, but there was no pain.  Nothing.  Except in his throat.  He grudgingly executed a painful swallow, winced at the tube he now felt in his nasal passage.

The muscles in his neck weren’t cooperating.  What the fuck?