Page 6 of Inevitable Secrets

* * *

Taylor watchedDerrick drift off to sleep and once his eyes stayed shut, she kissed his forehead.

“Mrs. Fletcher?”

Taylor turned to the nurse speaking to her as the other staff emptied from the room. “Please, call me Taylor.”

The nurse nodded. “Of course,” she said smiling. “I’m May, and I will be your husband’s nurse for tonight. I’m going to get you a chair and some blankets so that you can stay close by. We may need you to step out when we move him. He obviously needs you,” she said, smiling.

Taylor looked back at Derrick. “I need him just as much,” she said, her voice wavering a bit and tears sliding down her face.

“Oh sweetheart,” Nurse May said, taking Taylor into an embrace. She was an older woman, and her soft frame was made to soothe. “He is going to be okay,” she assured her. “His vitals are stable and we are going to keep them that way.”

“Thank you,” Taylor muffled into May’s scrub shirt, grateful for the reassurance.

The woman leaned back. “Can I get you something to change into?” she asked. “I mean don’t get me wrong, this is stunning,” she said motioning to the ball gown Taylor still wore, “but it can’t be comfortable.”

Taylor shook her head. “I’ll be fine for now,” she said, looking back at Derrick. She watched his smooth brow and his steady breathing courtesy of the tube in his mouth. There were bandages, tubes, and wires all over him, but none of that mattered. Because despite all of the scary-looking machinery around him, there was a blip-blip-blip on the monitor and that meant he was alive. Derrick was alive and he had seen her and she had told him she loved him.

Everything was going to be okay.

Taylor looked over to the doorway and found Mick standing just inside. “Mick, can you text Marty and let her know he is okay?”

“Already done, Mrs. Preston-Fletcher,” Mick said.

“Thanks, Mick,” Taylor smiled at him as the nurse wheeled in a recliner chair and pulled it close to the side of Derrick’s bed. “Thank you very much, May.”

“No problem, Taylor. I will be in and out a lot. Try to rest as much as possible,” she said gently.

Taylor sat in the chair and rested her head on the bed right next to Derrick’s arm. She took in a deep breath of his scent and fell asleep instantly.

* * *

“Mrs. Fletcher,”a voice said, accompanied by the light pressure of a hand on Taylor’s shoulder.

Taylor cleared her throat as she opened her eyes and found May, the nurse from the night before, waking her. “Yes,” she said, then became aware of her surroundings and flipped her head to Derrick. “Is everything okay?” she asked, suddenly panicked, taking Derrick in and seeing he looked exactly the same as he had when she fell asleep.

“Oh yes, we just need to take an x-ray of Mr. Fletcher and reposition him so we need you to step out for a minute.”

Uncertainty flooded Taylor. “Do I have to go? I want to stay with him—”

“Taylor, it's okay,” a voice from outside of the room chimed in. Taylor turned to the sound and found Marty giving her a small smile. “He is going to be okay, just let them take care of him,” she said with a nod.

“Marty,” Taylor said with a smile, and then turned to the nurse. “Can she just come in and see him, and then we will step out?”

“Okay,” the nurse relented, “but just a couple of minutes, please.”

“I understand,” Taylor said. She didn’t want to throw her high-profile status around for special favors, but she would push for her sister-in-law to see her critically wounded brother. Taylor turned to Marty and found her rooted in place, just outside the doorway with Rog behind her.

“Marty?”

Marty just shook her head in response. Taylor walked over to her, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think I can see him like this,” Marty whispered.

Taylor nodded her understanding. It wasn't exactly Derrick’s most shining moment. “That’s okay—”

“No, it's not,” Marty said. “I need to grow up and go in there,” she argued. “I need to tell him I love him just in case—”

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