Broken Road (19 page)

   “This is a code 427, I repeat a code four-two-seven! We need landing clearance!”

   
One, two, three,
more times the door bulged and then creaked.

   “One more time but harder,” he ordered his men.

   As a unit two of them ran at the door and it crashed open. That’s when everything turned wild.

   Devil went crazy on the men who came in the door using her street fighting skills to lay one flat and then another but as the rest crowded in the small room there wasn’t the time or room to fight them all.

   A fist grazed her chin and the co-pilot hopped out of his chair and took on one himself even though he was little
better then a stick. The man
Jacobs had taken on slammed him with a fist to the gut that sent the man flying in to the pilot flying the plane. And without warning both men fell to the ground as shots went flying from a gun.

   Devil saw blood soaking the floor before the plane dipped south.

   Dutch panicked as he saw the pilot lying on the floor with a bullet hole in his temple and ran of the steering controls pushing Devil out of his way and tried to take them over.

   Devil landed hard on her arm and cried out, but no one noticed as they panicked to keep the plane in the air. Devil knew that none of them could fly it.

   Smiling grimly she crawled out of the pit and pulled herself into one of the seats. She strapped herself in, placed her hands over her belly and did something she hadn’t don’t in twelve years, she prayed.

After dropping Devil off at the Billings airport she did something she had been i
tching to do a
week as she watched her pregnant friend cry in bed. She made the hour drive back to the Lone Star Ranch and she was going to rip the bastard a new one.

   Devil was not only her best friend, but had been like her sister ever since they had known each other.

   Cee had a fire burning in her and she was going to burn the man who had gotten her friend in trouble and then thrown her out for no reason.

   Cee parked her car, got out and slammed the door before making her way up the gravel path to the ranch house. When she can to the screen door she pounded on it till the very man she was going to kill answered it.

   “What do you want?” Winthrop snapped at the woman at his door. She looked familiar, but right now he couldn’t give a fucking damn. He was pissed and not in the mood. Devil had left like he had wanted her to do to protect her, but that didn’t stop her leaving from hurting him.

   “You have a lot of nerve you stupid clod of a man!” Cee started in on her rage.

   “Now hold on a moment,” Winthrop growled, but was cut off by her poking him in the chest.

   “Who in the hell do you think you are
,
doing that to Devil and then just shutting her out like that? I thought you loved her, but then you go and send her off calling her a-a-!”

    Oh, so this had been his Devil’s little friend from town. No, not his Devil anymore.

   “Now listen here, little lady, she made the choice to leave-”

    But Celia wasn’t listening to him, because the TV blaring in the room behind him had caught her attention. She pushed him out of her way and entered the house going to stand in front of the TV.

   “What do you think you're doing just coming-?”

   “Shhh!” she hushed him.

   “-
a plane from that left the Billings airport earlier today has crashed. The Flight A-07 requested soon after taking off an emergency landing, however never made it. The plane crashed ten minutes after taking off in a field. There is known to be only one survivor in the Billings Hospital and is unidentified
…”

   Winthrop grabbed her arm and swung her around to stare at him and he was shocked when he saw her stricken expression, her face pale white.

   Frowning he asked, “What’s going on with you?”

   “That was her flight,” Cee said in a whisper, her body starting to shake violently.

   “Her who?!” Winthrop demanded with a sinking felling of dread in his gut.

   Cee started to wail. “That was Devil’s plane! And it’s crashed!”

   Winthrop cussed and went slamming out the front door. “Kip!” he roared. Kip came running.

   “What, Boss?” he asked, eyes wide.

   “Watch the freaking ranch for me and the lady in the house,” Winthrop said running by him and slamming into his truck. He floored the gas and left speeding down the road.

   Kip started after him dumbfounded for a moment and then went inside the house.

…

Devil caught flashes of white lights in between her spells of pain, as well as blurs of people running around her and drifted out once more.

…

Dr. Ross Wesley Giler paced the hallway outside the ICU unit housing the only living victim of the Billings’ plane crash. There was nothing he could do for them unless someone of their family came and signed for them, and quick. Once had the victim already fail and had to be brought back after a half an hour of her having been here. She had come in lucky to be alive do to the fact the plane took a direct nose drive to the ground, crumpling in like a squished soda can, and then catching on fire.

   A loud commotion at the hospital entrance drew him from his deep thought and he saw two of his male nurses holding back a large younger man in place.

   “Sir, you can’t be on
this floor,” on
e
of the man nurses told Winthrop.

    “Like hell I can’t. Where is she?” he asked desperately, looking around. When his gaze landed on Dr. Ross he made a beeline for him.

   Dr. Ross met him half way with a hope that this was the man he had been looking for.

   “Do you know the female victim from the place crash,” Dr. Ross asked bluntly to cut through all the crap. He had a life to save.

   “Yes,” Winthrop said breathlessly.

   “Who is she?”

   “Her name is Devil Runner, she’s nineteen.”

    Dr. Ross looked Winthrop in the eyes. “She needs surgery now to save her life. Are you related to her in anyway to sign for her?”

    “Yes, she is my fiancée.” He didn’t even blink as he said it, and if he got his way it would be the truth one way or another.

   The doctor sighed in relief and started giving out orders for her surgery immediately. After a quick signature on a sheet of paper she was carted out of the room to the OR.

   Winthrop saw only her face as she was taken out of the room and sank to his knees on the floor with a silent cry of grief and horror.

   Dr. Ross looked at him with pitying eyes. “I’ll see how bad it is and I’ll be out when I can tell you what we will need to do.”

   Then they left him there by himself to see if they could even save her.  

Four hours. Four torturous hours that seemed to eat away at his soul. For each hour that passed his thoughts drifted to different emotions from a deep sorrow to be swallowed in a burning fury at not only himself, but for having been the one to do this to her, but to the man’s who fault it was that she lay there dying.

   Winthrop was now slumped over in the hard plastic hospital chair, his body shaking with broken sobs as tears shimmered in his eyes, felling to the floor.

   The pain in his chest was not a burning anymore, but now had turned to a vast rip that was iced over. He was going to lose her even before he had a chance to keep her.

   “Oh god
,
what have I done,” he wailed quietly into his hands.

   To bent up in his misery Winthrop did not notice the click of polished leather shoes that came down the hallway nor the man who sat beside him
unti
l the man placed a hand on his shoulder.

   “You now know the feeling you placed in her heart when you threw her out. This pain, my boy, is the price you must pay,” Royal said with a bitterness that spoke volumes.

   Winthrop looked up at the man with tear-streaked cheeks. “Why does this have to happen to her?” His voice broke and cracked on the words.

   Royal’s eyes were misty with tears but he looked away from the boy and up to the blanche white ceiling. “That is only something you can answer for yourself. However,” he looked back to the cowboy with narrowed eyes. “If she dies I will kill you myself and it will take months if not years for you to die of pain.”

   Winthrop laughed bitterly. “I die a little more inside with each minute that passes, as she is in there. Nothing you can do could feel any worse. I never even got to tell her.”

   Winthrop’s head bent down once more and he took in a deep shuddering breath.

   “Tell her what?” Royal asked quietly.

   When the cowboy didn’t answer Royal stood and started to walk away. But Winthrop’s words stopped him.

   “That I love her,” he whispered, “I never even told her once…”

    Royal smiled faintly and walked away once more, this time leaving for good.

   With each tick of the clock, it finally drew on the sixth hour and Winthrop had finally given up hope. Slowly and painfully he dragged himself from his chair and stood, without waiting to ask he started for the doors.

   “Mr. Canter! Wait!”

   Winthrop turned on his heel as Dr. Ross came running over to him. He didn’t miss the fact the most of the man’s surgical gown was covered in blood. He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut and waited for the news that would rip out his heart and make him a hollow man.

  
Dear god please-!

  
“Mr. Canter, I need to talk to you. It’s about something private; can I take you into one of the rooms?” Dr. Ross asked with a grim tone.

   Without waiting however Dr. Ross pulled him into a darken little office.

   “We found something out while cleaning up all the exterior wounds, before we can go in and do anything with the internal bleeding I had to ask your permission for something.”

   Winthrop let out a breath of relief and shook the doctor demanding, “She’s not dead?”

   Dr. Ross shook his head. “But she will be depending on your answer. Your fiancée is two months pregnant and that makes things difficult for us.”

   The breath left his lungs and he stood stunned.

   The doctor went on, “You have one of two options. You can keep the child, but then her chance of surviving is less then thirty percent. However even if you terminate the pregnancy her chances are still less then fifty percent.” Ross swallowed the sour taste on his tongue at such talk. Hesitating he asked, “Can I give you my view points?”

   Mutely Winthrop nodded at the older man.

   “From the view of a doctor I am advised to tell you the best thing for her is to end it. However as a man I don’t believe it that. Not for anything religious, but just as a man who has lost a child like that.

   “I had been only twenty one at the time and me and my fiancée had been in a car crash. She never told me she was pregnant and when asked to do the same thing as you I said got rid of it. She healed, but never forgave me and left. It’s been ten years and I still love her, but she’s married with two beautiful daughters. Even on the times we pass by each other on the street she will never look at me, yet she knows I’m there.” Ross sighed heavily. “It’s your choice, but with her odds now anyway it could go either way.”

   With a sudden burst energy Winthrop grabbed the man by both shoulders and said, “Save them both I beg you, man. Just save them. I have faith in you.” The deep sincerity in his voice that wavered with a small hope undid Ross and he nodded.

   “I will do everything possible, but I have to go now. You should go home and rest. It will be about six more hours till she is done and then we wait. Come back in the morning after you’ve had some rest. I’ll be waiting for you.”

   Winthrop nodded at the man and stopped him just before he went back through the doors again.

   “Thank you,” he said quietly.

   Dr. Ross paused, nodded, and went back in.

…

Sleep was not and easy thing to come by, but as Winthrop curled up with a sleeping Lilla he found himself relaxing and slowly drifting to sleep with the sound of soft baby snores in his ear.

   Cee had thrown a hysterical fit when he had come back and told her everything and when he told her about being pregnant she said, “Well no shit, you ass!”

   Not understanding he had asked, “What do you mean?”