Page 40 of I'll Be There
“Don’t get—”
“Caught,” Romeo said. “I know. I’ll catch up.” Then he took off down an adjacent hallway.
Cockyis what he’d meant to say. As in, keep your head down, don’t draw attention to yourself. But perhaps Romeo already knew that. He wandered down the hall, hands in his pockets, looking like the grown son of one of the patients.
“Who is that kid?” Micah asked as they strode down the hall.
“John Christiansen’s nephew,” Seth answered. “He lived with them a couple years ago. John has a soft spot for the kid.”
“He’s a fast thinker,” Micah added. “And doesn’t freak out.”
“If he ever wants to stop chopping firewood and start fighting fires, he might be a good asset to the Jude County Hotshots,” Reuben said.
“Oh, he’d still chop firewood,” Pete said. “But we’d add digging ditches to the fun.”
Conner grinned. Yeah, sometimes that felt like all he did.
A life, probably, he could let go of, if it weren’t for the camaraderie.
I don’t think I can go back to Montana...
He hadn’t thought much about Liza’s words last night. But now they tunneled inside, latched on.
Maybe she wasn’t talking about just this summer...
“Check in at the desk,” Micah said, his voice low. “We’ll hang back.” He gestured with his head toward the Gatekeeper of the Critical Care Ward, a thin brunette wearing a knitted sweater over her pastel scrubs.
Conner approached. “I’m here to see my sister—Harmony Blue?” A little editing for the moment didn’t feel wrong.
The woman glanced at her computer. “Room 212, but be aware that she’s still a little groggy.”
He flashed Micah the room number, then headed down the hallway.
The antiseptic smells, the ethereal quiet of the carpeted hallways, save for the occasional code, or name, or even conversation emanating from the patient rooms, raised the thin hairs on the back of his neck as he ducked his head down.
He couldn’t help it. People came to the hospital to die.
Not this time, please, Lord.
Conner couldn’t set foot inside a hospital without remembering his all-out sprint through Kalispell Regional the night Liza had fought for her life. He’d been dodging feds, too, which made visitation iffy, but he’d made it to her room without being arrested.
Then.
He found the open critical care area and pushed his way inside.
Blue lay in the farthest bed from the door, her curtain pulled back. Tubing extended from her chest, a heart monitorpumped out rhythm, and an oxygen mask cupped her nose. She looked impossibly frail, nothing of the rebel in her demeanor.
He couldn’t stop himself from taking her hand. Rubbing his thumb over her pale, nearly translucent flesh. “I’m so sorry, Blue. Please don’t die.”
Her hand squeezed in his, and he looked up to see her eyes, pale blue-green, opening, latching onto him. She reached over and pulled the mask away.
“You—what are you doing here?” Her voice emerged more of a rasp than words.
Not the greeting he’d expected, but— “I couldn’t leave without...I had to make sure you were okay.”
She relaxed then, a soft smile finding her lips. “You’re so much like him, you know.”
He stilled.
