Page 32 of Due North
Ash lowered himself to another bale of hay and leaned forward while I kept my forehead in my hand. “You okay, son?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, noticing that my voice was breathy. I tried to force more authority into it when I spoke again. “I don’t even know why Sheriff Nash took me to the station.”
It was even softer this time. What was wrong with me?
“Because it was two a.m., and you wouldn’t leave The Wise Anchor. Since the sheriff was checking with the tenders, he hauled you out. You were so drunk you couldn’t even walk unassisted.”
I groaned as an answer, and Ash gripped my shoulder. “Do you think we haven’t noticed the changes in you over the last few months?” he asked, his fatherly side coming through loud and clear. “You’re always stumbling around, you never smile, and you’re half asleep every time I see you. There’s no shame in admitting that you have a problem with alcohol, and you need some help.”
“I do not have a drinking problem!” I exclaimed. There was no force behind it, though, and my words slurred as I sluggishly raised my head. “I wasn’t drinking last night.”
It was Blaze’s turn to squeeze my shoulder when I lowered my head back to my hand. I didn’t have the strength to hold my head up any longer, which meant things were worse than I’d thought. The blue was half grey now. I kept checking to see if the faces of the babies I loved would be waiting for me. Probably not. Probably, they hated me too.
“Tex, what aren’t you telling us? Look at me, Tex.”
“I can’t. I physically can’t,” I said, my voice trembling and breathy. “I have a problem—not alcohol. When Nash hauled me out, I couldn’t walk.”
“We know, that’s what we just said,” Beau reminded me. “Cecelia said when she left at midnight, you were fine. Are you coming down with something?”
“I’ve been hiding it. I should have asked for a ride.”
It was getting harder and harder to speak. I couldn’t lift my head, and my chest was paralyzed. It wasn’t paralyzed with fear like it has been the last nine years, either. It was physically paralyzed.
“Why didn’t you call one of us?” Ash asked, his tone more concerned than judgmental.
“I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
“You are the foreman of this place,” Blaze said. “If you have too much on your plate, your job is to hire more hands to help.”
Ash grabbed my shoulders and sat me up, leaning my back against the horse stall. He took stock of me, and I met his gaze the best I could with one eyelid drooping. He glanced at Blaze and back to me. “Your eye shouldn’t do that, son.”
“The change you noticed?” My words slurred, but he nodded. Ash was still holding me out by my shoulders, and my head nearly touched my shoulder now. “I tried to hide a disease —breaking remission. Today is the end.” My voice was so soft now they had to lean forward to hear me.
Today was the end. Probably the end of my life. I could only get so lucky.
“I need help,” I said, my voice holding all the fear I’d kept bottled up inside me for the last six months, a stray tear running from my left eye under the drooping lid. “Can’t breathe,” I gasped.
Beau tossed the stool behind him, “I’ll get the truck.”
Blaze grabbed my upper arm as I started to slide down the stall wall. “Dammit, he didn’t need a jail cell last night. He needed a hospital bed. What have we missed all these months?” he asked his father, who helped lower me to the bale of hay.
“I don’t know, but whatever this is, we don’t need a truck. We need an ambulance. Call one. Now.”
Blaze grabbed his phone and put it to his ear, but I was too weak to wave my hand and tell him I’d be fine. I wouldn’t be.
I closed my eyes and noticed there was almost no blue left. I was floating in the grey now. Good. I wanted the grey. Soon, I would see my babies again, if not in heaven, then from afar as punishment in hell.
I listened to Blaze rattle off the information to the operator and concentrated on breathing in and out. I didn’t care who saw me being hauled away in an ambulance since I probably wouldn’t be breathing by the time it got here.
The machine next to my bed whirred and clicked, and the sound was soothing, if I was honest. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel like I would die. Funny how you can only admit that to yourself once you know you’re safe.
A new sound reached my ears, and I opened my eyes, surprised to see a figure in the chair by my bed. She was wrapped in a white hospital blanket and had her head resting on the back of it as she slept. I wondered what time it was, but I couldn’t see a clock. Instead, my gaze went right back to the beautiful red-headed beauty asleep at my hospital bedside. I didn’t know why she was here, but she was the angel I needed to see tonight.
I closed my eyes and swallowed, relieved when I had no problem making the muscles work. I didn’t feel as weak, which meant I was back on the drugs that would beat back this awful disease again.
“Next time you think about being an idiot, try not to do it over living or dying, boy,” that beautiful angel whispered.
I opened my eyes and tried to smile but was disappointed when I couldn’t make the muscles work together. Cece leaned forward and took my hand. “It’s okay. I know you want to smile that cowboy smile of yours. The doctor said you’ll be cocky again soon enough. You just have to give the medication a little bit more time to work.”
