A SEAL's Vow (SEALs of Chance Creek Book 2) (32 page)

“I think…” Her voice rasped, and he could tell it was painful for her speak. She moistened her lips and tried again. “I think… I’m ready… to go.”

“No!” Clay reared up, then remembered Dell and pressed his palm against his father’s neck again. “Nora, no. Please.” Clay read the defeat in her eyes and didn’t know what to do. She was giving up. That man had harried her out of a job, chased her halfway across the country and nearly killed her. Her ordeal was over, but she couldn’t take that in. He had to convince her, but if he took the pressure off Dell’s neck, Dell could bleed out in minutes.

Still, Nora was slipping away. He’d seen this too many times to believe otherwise.

“You’ve got to fight now, Nora. You’ve got to fight to stay. I need you here.”

“I… can’t. I’m…sorry.” Another tear rolled down her cheek.

Clay clamped his hand on Dell’s neck and bent over Nora, dragging Dell even closer. He kissed her, doing the only thing he knew he could do to convince her she hang on. “I love you.” He kissed her again. “Baby, I love you. Hang in there. For me. Please.”

When he pulled back she searched his face, eyes wide.

But he felt the moment her life left her body.

Clay tilted his head back and howled in rage.

‡

“Y
ou know what
I can’t understand?” Nora’s mother said. “Why you fight so hard for everyone else and not for yourself.”

“Mm-mm.” Nora couldn’t find her voice. Couldn’t find her hands for that matter. Or her eyes. She was caught in some kind of gray fog, her mother’s words coming from far away and close all at the same time.

Where was she?

“Always a scrapper. Always so fierce. Remember how you kicked Danny Kirkpatrick and made him give Penny Sanders back her sandwich in first grade? They sent you home, but I was so proud of you.”

Her mouth tasted like cotton balls.

Her mouth. Where…?

Someone was poking her—hard—in the shoulder. She tried to shift away.

Where was her body?

“But when Vinnie Reins punched you in the stomach, you came home in tears and refused to go back to school until I bribed you with skating lessons. Why didn’t you kick him? I always asked myself that.”

“Mm… Ow.” Nora tried to get away from the pain.
Enough pain.

Too much.

Too much.

Her mother kept talking. Nora wished she would stop, and dreaded it at the same time.

Her mother—

But—wasn’t she…?

“Same thing when Phyllis Reynolds stole your prom date. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t even badmouth her behind her back. Where was that fighting spirit of yours then? Why don’t you fight for yourself, Nora?”

“I… did.”

She had fought for herself, hadn’t she? Just now? When…

Nora didn’t remember when.

“And that job of yours. Those kids. You were a wonderful teacher, Nora. Just wonderful. But then that man—”

That man.

That… Andrew.

Pain stabbed through her again and Nora groaned.
Who…? Why were they hurting her?

“He took your career,” her mother said. “Just… took it! You let him. You let him chase you off.”

“Mom.” It came out a moan.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel—

When the pain sliced through her again it was too much.
She didn’t want to—

“You did. You let him take those kids away from you. Take your career. Now you’re letting him take Clay. And I don’t understand it. You never liked to fight for yourself, but you used to fight for those you loved.”

Clay. She loved Clay.

“—leaving him behind when you know exactly what that feels like. I thought I raised you better—”

Clay.

“—and if you aren’t willing to fight for him, maybe I didn’t teach you a thing. Lord knows I tried—”

She’d fight for Clay. She’d—

“If you aren’t going to fight for him, then you might as well come with me right now. Crying shame, that’s what I say, but if you’re ready to leave it all behind—even that nice young man—well then, let go. I’ve never been able to tell you a thing—”

Nora felt her fingers tense. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t want to let go. Not of Clay. Not—

“Make a choice, that’s all you have to do. It’s that simple, like most things in life. Hold on or let go. You know what’s right, darling.”

For the first time, her mother’s voice softened.

“You know what’s right,” she repeated.

Hold on or let go.

Hold on or—

Nora gasped as air filled her lungs with the scrape of sandpaper. She breathed in, coughed, breathed in again. All around her people worked, paper masks covering their faces, nylon gloves over their hands. Metal instruments, bright lights, the smell of blood.

“Clay,” she tried to say, but only her breath rasped out, hard as stone scraping over stone.

“She’s back!” a man in a mask announced triumphantly. “We got her! She’s breathing on her own. Someone tell that crazy SEAL before he breaks down the door.”

‡

“T
his isn’t going
to be an easy conversation,” Cab warned Clay when they took seats on opposite sides of a table in Linda’s Diner in town forty-eight hours after Clay had found Nora in the old schoolhouse. By the time the ambulance had arrived, the camera crews had, too, and he’d followed the gurneys out of the schoolhouse into a crowd of onlookers, cameras, lights and voices all going at once. He’d nearly gone ballistic, but Jericho and Boone had been there. They’d bundled him into the ambulance with Nora, while his father had been carried to the hospital in a second one, and they’d left the crowds behind—for a little while.

The ride had been the stuff of nightmares, the ambulance crew working the defibrillator hard on the way to the hospital. They whisked Nora into one operating room, his father into another, and left him waiting on the other side. He’d tried to follow them, got a little physical when an orderly had restrained him, before finally realizing there was nothing more he could do. He had no idea how long it was before a nurse rushed out to tell him Nora was alive.

Renata and the camera crews had come to the hospital, too, but they’d kept a respectful distance, much to Clay’s surprise, and although he knew Renata had interviewed the others about what had happened, she hadn’t approached him.

Yet.

It didn’t matter. He’d never be able to describe the moment when Nora had died. Or the moment when he’d learned she’d come back to life.

He knew the second episode of the show had come out today, but he didn’t give a fuck. Jericho had reported that it was a lot like the first, but that they’d actually filmed quite a bit of the process of building Boone and Avery’s house.

“You look like a stud as long as there’s a hammer in your hand,” Jericho had said. “There’s a lot of chatter on the website about the house. People want you to post your building plans.”

At any other time, Clay knew that would have gratified him, but today all he could think about was Nora. She had been unconscious but in stable condition since they’d resuscitated her, and Riley, Savannah and Avery were sitting with her—the only reason he’d agreed to leave her side. Her doctor had assured Clay she was out of the woods, even if she hadn’t regained consciousness except for that first brief moment.

“She’s been through a big shock,” the doctor had said. “Sleep is the body’s way of dealing with that kind of trauma. She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”

After making the women promise to call him if her condition changed the slightest bit, Clay had visited his father, who had also regained consciousness as soon as the wound in his neck had been tended to. His father had been lucky. The bullet had only grazed his neck. It had pierced his flesh—hence all the blood—but had missed any major arteries. Reassured after checking on him again, Clay had let Cab drive him to the diner. Maybe he was in shock, too. Nothing felt real. He found it hard to breathe most of the time.

“Are you up for hearing this?” Cab asked him as the waitress set down two cups of coffee in front of them. “That’s all for now,” he told the young woman, and she left, taking the menus with her.

“Yeah.” Actually, he wasn’t sure at all. But he couldn’t go on guessing. He had to know what had happened to Nora. What he kept imagining was bad enough; the truth couldn’t be worse.

“It might help for someone she cares about to know what she went through when she wakes up. Understand?” Cab shifted back in his seat.

“Yeah,” Clay said again. He did understand that. There was nothing as soul-crushing as having lived through a tragedy that others hadn’t, and couldn’t imagine. His memories bound him to Boone, Jericho and Walker. They’d served together much of their time in the Navy. They’d shared experiences they didn’t speak of, but that haunted all of them.

“We’ve got the same ghosts,” Walker had said once. That summed it up for Clay. But Nora wouldn’t have anyone to share hers. He’d have to do the best he could.

“She fought, Clay.” Cab watched him. “She fought like a she-devil. You need to know that. Pennsley might have won in the end, but she made him pay.”

Clay had made him pay, too. With his life.

He had no regrets.

“I got the coroner’s report. Pennsley had contusions on his head—big enough to suggest he might have suffered a concussion. He had scratch marks on his arms and face. That’s to be expected.”

Clay nodded, his stomach slipping sideways at the thought of Nora fighting for her life.

“He had several bite marks. Deep bite marks. If he’d come in for treatment, he’d have been given a tetanus shot.”

Clay frowned. Bite marks?

“His neck shows signs of bruising. She must have gotten him in a choke hold at some point.” Cab’s admiration was clear in his voice. Clay’s throat thickened, as it had too often in these past forty-eight hours.

“And this is the part I like the best,” the sheriff went on, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “His balls showed extensive trauma as well.” Cab looked up. “She kicked him so hard she ruptured a testicle.”

A sound came out of Clay that might have been a laugh, if it hadn’t been so full of pain. It caught in his throat and almost turned into a sob. “Jesus.”

“I know.”

He fought for control and wished to God they were anywhere but in a public place. But what would he have done if they weren’t?

No. Cab had chosen wisely.

“It’s going to take time, Clay. First she’s got to heal enough to wake up, and that in itself is a battle. Then she’s going to have to decide to stay numb or come back to the land of the living. You’ve got all this pressure on you to marry.”

That he did. He was still being filmed, even now. He turned in his seat, and Ed saluted him from across the restaurant. The man was being as discreet as he could be, but he was still there. At least he was keeping far enough away he wasn’t taping their words.

“Fulsom doesn’t get to dictate this,” Cab told him. “I’ll make sure through Boone that he understands that, okay?”

Clay nodded, swallowing hard again. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Remember, she’s a fighter. She’ll fight her way out of this, too. We’re all rooting for you, you know. For both of you.”

By the time he made it back to the hospital, Clay felt like he’d fought another war. His mind kept picturing what the struggle between Nora and Andrew must have looked like. Each time he thought about it, he had to fight down nausea and the urge to kill the man all over again.

He stopped short when he entered the waiting room and found his mother there. She sat on the edge of a seat, looking older than she had the last time he saw her. When she stood to greet him, he noticed her fingers trembling. Had his father taken a turn for the worse?

“Mom?”

“Your father’s fine. Your sisters and brothers are with him. He’s… fine.” She sagged into his arms and began to cry as he crossed the room and crouched before her, thin heaving sobs he’d never heard before. His mother was a pillar of strength. She wasn’t an emotional creature. Clay was at a loss for what to do, so he simply held her, patting her on the back as she cried.