Page 75 of Rescuing Josiah
Apparently, the SEAL had shown up just in time to get a blow in from a desperate Chelsea.
“Tried to keep you out of the thick of things, dude, so you didn't go home with yet another injury,” Mark “Bubba” Wright snickered, but there was a tenseness to his tone.
“Sorry, but I have to get to him,” Chelsea said, her tone heavy with despair.
“You need to stay still, Chelsea, you were just shot,” Rex reminded her.
“Don’t care,” she wheezed. “He saved my life.”
With a small sigh, Rex looped his arm around her shoulders and helped her move so she was on her knees beside him. Josiah tried to move, too, but his body refused to cooperate.
“Why did you do that?” Chelsea whispered as her gentle fingers stroked along his cheek.
“Because I couldn’t lose you,” he answered simply.
“But I don’t want to loseyou,” she shot back.
Badly as he wanted to assure her that she wasn't going to lose him, that he’d just taken a pretty major leap to leaving the past in the past and looking to the future, the heaviness weighing down upon him told him he might not have much choice in the matter.
If this was it, if he was about to die, then he couldn’t leave this world without uttering the most important words he’d ever speak.
“Had to save you, Chels, because I love you,” he murmured before he lost his battle with consciousness and was whisked away into an all-consuming darkness.
May 18th
2:54 P.M.
Pain thudded through her chest with every breath she took.
Chelsea knew it wasn't all because of the broken ribs.
Some of it was the ache in her heart.
For years, she had been dreaming of hearing Josiah say those words to her. For years, she had known the chances of him ever reciprocating her feelings were virtually non-existent. For years, she’d endured the pity of her friends as they watched her, unable to let go of the unrequited love she had for a man that most would look at and likely find unlovable.
Now he’d finally said those words she’d hardly dared to hope for, but it was nothing like she’d imagined it would be.
If Josiah had ever fallen for her, she thought that everything would be perfect. All her dreams would have come true, and after telling her he loved her, he would have whisked her up into his arms and carried her to bed, where he would have made love to her for hours.
Well, the bed part had kind of turned out to be true.
After Josiah had passed out, she’d been unable to hold back her tears, all her fear about losing him coming out in huge gut-wrenching sobs. Not ideal since a bullet had literally plowed into her chest.
Okay, so it had been stopped by the Kevlar, but she’d never spent much time thinking about how a bulletproof vest worked in real life. Just because it could stop a bullet from piercing flesh didn't mean it could prevent injury.
And it hadn't.
The pitch-black bruise spiraling out around her heart was proof of that.
Several of her ribs had been broken by the bullet, and it literally hurt to do everything. To breathe, to move, even lying completely still, taking the tiniest breaths she could imagine was utter agony.
In the end, as she’d been lying in Rex’s arms, sobbing as she watched the rest of the SEALs work on Josiah, keeping him from bleeding out, switching from apologizing to Rex for hitting him to begging Josiah not to die, someone had sedated her.
When she finally woke up, she was in the hospital.
Of course, her first words had been asking about Josiah, and the relief she felt when she heard he was also in the hospital would remain with her forever.
“You know, they told me that the bullet didn't do any damage. That it went straight through and didn't touch any of your internal organs. They said that you're going to be okay, that your body is just resting after surgery, but you should know that I'm not going to believe it until you wake up and tell me yourself,” she murmured to the man in the bed.
