California Girl (23 page)

With a vicious swing, he slammed the heavy lamp into a thick
skull. The thief staggered, groaned, and stumbled over the chair, falling to
his knees.

Before Elliot could adjust and grasp his weapon firmly
again, another intruder rushed forward, hurling the door against the wall, just
missing Elliot’s nose. Caught off guard, he stumbled backward. Unbalanced, he
attempted to swing at the next thief’s head but missed, smashing the lamp into
his shoulder instead.

A curse splintered the silence, and after that, confusion
reigned. With pain shooting up his chest and down his arm, Elliot threw himself
at the second thief, bringing him down to the floor and pummeling him. The
first intruder staggered upward, but Alys in nightshirt and cowboy boots flew
out of the darkness, kicking hard and accurately at a delicate area. Elliot
winced when the man screamed and bent double.

Someone outside the door shouted a warning. A rough fist
flew out of nowhere to connect with Elliot’s jaw, and he staggered backward. Pain
shot through his head and shattered his chest. He attempted to hang on to the
thug in his hands, but the thieves outside were getting away, and Alys seemed
intent on following. Releasing his grip on the thief, he grabbed the door for
support. The pain in his side escalated as she rushed past, heading for the
street.

With one last tremendous effort, Elliot grabbed Alys’s gown.
He jerked her down with him, clasping her tight against his chest as it
exploded.

“We’re going with him.”

Terrified so much that she shook in her boots, Alys jerked a
dress over her nightshirt and gathered a sobbing Lucia into her arms while the
medics efficiently completed their tasks.

She couldn’t absorb everything that had happened here. The
police had roared in with sirens screaming, the intruders had run off, and
Elliot hadn’t moved. Still wasn’t moving. Fear clutched at her throat, cutting
off the blood to her brain. She couldn’t think, only react. And her reaction
was to hang onto Elliot for dear life.

He lay still and pale against the stretcher. A small trickle
of blood marred his lip, but otherwise, he appeared to be sleeping. His tousled
curls revealed no gashes, although a bruise was forming along his unshaven jaw.

Several patrolmen were canvassing the parking lot, looking
for witnesses. The one remaining behind had called the ambulance.

“They didn’t have guns,” she kept telling anyone who
listened. Elliot couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be shot. He had to be sleeping.
They just needed to wake him.

Terrified out of her mind, she squeezed Lucia closer. The
medics ignored her while they tested vital signs, shot a needle into Elliot’s
arm, and readied him to be carried out.

“We need you to give a report, Mrs. . . . ”
The officer waited expectantly.

“Seagraves. I’m going with him.” Carrying Lucia, ignoring
the policeman, she hurried after the stretcher. This was nuts. The whole world
had gone insane. They’d just been horseback riding. He’d fought off the
intruders with the effortlessness of Clint Eastwood. Elliot was as alive and
well as she was.

But he wasn’t moving. She would have to wake him up if no
one else did. Over the protests of the medics, she climbed into the ambulance,
settling Lucia on her lap and reaching for the long, skilled fingers of
Elliot’s hand. The thieves were gone now. Elliot would simply have to wake up
and help her deal with this mess. She needed him.

In the back of her mind, a voice shouted that she was
behaving irrationally, but she shut it out. She didn’t want to hear rational
right now.

Blithely ignoring all argument as if she were deaf, Alys
clung to Elliot until the medics shrugged and capitulated.

“Let us belt your daughter into the front seat, ma’am,” one
said in his soft Texas drawl. “She’ll be safer, and we need room to work back
here.”

When Lucia went without complaint, Alys nodded. With the
child’s departure, she had both hands free to clasp around one of Elliot’s. He
still didn’t move. Perhaps the shot had put him to sleep. She would send him
positive energy while he got a good rest. He’d played the part of hero
magnificently. She could hold on until he was ready to wake.

The siren screamed as the ambulance pulled out of the motel
lot, and she knew that would terrify Lucia. Over the noise, Alys caught the medic’s
attention, pointed overhead, and shook her head. The medic understood, snapped
an order to the driver, and the siren stopped.

Elliot still didn’t move.

She continued holding Elliot’s hand between hers, sending
positive vibrations with the part of her still functioning. His skin was tough
but uncalloused, the nails short and neat. She’d seen the power he’d packed
when he rolled his fingers into fists. He was strong. He was a fighter.

Calling
up her lotus flower, looking deep inside herself, Alys chanted her mantra
silently, concentrating as if her life depended on it. She let her energy flow
from her center, down her arms and fingertips, and into Elliot.
Love is the power that heals.

The chaos settled into peace. Blossoming with renewed
strength, Alys recalled the tenderness of Elliot’s caress, the way he’d stroked
her jaw and looked at her as if she were the moon and stars. Happiness flowed
outward, found pathways from her heart and soul, enveloping Elliot in a blanket
of comfort.

She felt his fingers tighten around hers, and joy bloomed.

She had no idea how long the ride lasted. She was jarred
from her trance when the medic threw open the ambulance doors, jumped down, and
began removing the stretcher. She couldn’t hold on to Elliot any longer. He
slipped away.

Panic abruptly replaced her earlier peace. The ambulance
lights flashed red against the hospital walls. Medics raced with the stretcher
through the automatic glass maw to the cold, artificial light of the emergency
room.

Alys lifted Lucia from the front seat to ground herself. She
stood frozen outside the hated hospital, dreading entering. Trustingly, Lucia
leaned her small head against Alys’s shoulder and clung to her neck.

In an unsteady daze, Alys let someone usher her into the
outer ring of hell that was the emergency room. A man moaned. A stench of urine
mixed with the odor of ammonia. She cringed, forcing herself not to turn tail
and run. The medical technicians led her up to the admitting desk where a nurse
asked her a question, but blind panic lurked in the back of her mind, and she
stuttered incoherently over the answer.

A policeman arrived to question her more, and she had to
concentrate on not giving out any information about Lucia. He didn’t seem too
interested in anything but the robbery attempt, and Lucia quietly slipped
behind a chair to play with a magazine.

Fighting the panic attack by keeping one eye on Lucia, she
darted glances down the hall where they’d taken Elliot, and clung to sanity by
the edge of her teeth. Interns inquired about medical history. Nurses wanted to
know about insurance. She had no answers, couldn’t speak them if she did. The
policemen offered to return to the hotel for Elliot’s wallet, and she nodded
stiffly in agreement.

This was even worse than her worst nightmare. Elliot could
be dying, and she couldn’t go to him. They could take Lucia away and she’d lose
her in the maze of red tape. Where was Purple? Had he run away? She hadn’t
found Mame yet. Oh, God, how could she find her center with everyone tugging at
her from every direction?

The astringent scent of disinfectant and the earthier stench
of blood merged with the crying and the sirens into sensory overload, and she
fought the urge to flee. She couldn’t leave yet. She needed to find Elliot, to
know that he was well.

Panic formed a red haze across her mind. She started gasping
for breath, and the policeman rushed off to find a nurse. Lucia climbed up in
her lap, and Alys clung to her, rocking back and forth. She couldn’t give in to
hysteria. She had to take care of Lucia. She had to find Purple. She wanted to
see the orchid bloom. She couldn’t do it all.

Tears spilled down her face.

A nurse offered her a paper cup of water. Gasping for
breath, Alys shook her head. She accepted a brown paper bag and breathed rhythmically
into it as she’d learned to do back when Fred spent weeks in the hospital.

Overcoming the hyperventilation, she rocked Lucia and
waited, concentrating on blocking out the suffering around her.

Eventually, a nurse led her and Lucia to a tiny cubicle where
a doctor with a clipboard waited. Elliot was sitting up against the pillows,
and Alys nearly collapsed in relief and tears.

She didn’t hear a word the doctor said. She set Lucia down
on the cot, grabbed Elliot’s hand, and winged prayers of recovery to the
heavens. His fingers wrapping around hers were strong. He tried to smile, but
it wasn’t his best effort. She let relief flood through her anyway.

“I’m fine,” she heard him say. “I’ll be out of here
shortly.”

She thought the doctor objected to that, but she didn’t
listen to him. She just needed to know that Elliot was alive. That he would
live.

Then she could be on her way. She didn’t have to stay in the
hospital this time. Elliot was a doctor and could take care of himself. She had
no responsibility to him or anyone else. She was free. Independent, the way she
wanted to be. She could breathe again.

“I gave you my energy,” she told him, knowing it was
senseless to anyone except her, needing to let him know she’d done everything
she could. She should have learned CPR instead of spiritual healing. He would
have understood that better.

“I know,” he whispered. “I felt it.”

She ought to be surprised, but she didn’t have time to
register his reply. The RN lifted Lucia from the cot, distracting her.

“You’ll have to leave, Mrs. Roth.” The nurses and the
policemen apparently hadn’t exchanged notes on who was whom. “We’ll have to
take Dr. Roth up to a room for the night. Do you have a means of
transportation?”

Eager for the distraction of little arms around her neck,
Alys reached for Lucia. Checking Elliot to be certain he was still breathing,
reassured by his nod, she let the nurses hustle her out, and agreed to let them
call a taxi.

In her head, she knew she’d helped Elliot. She had done her
duty. The rest was up to him. She could leave with a clear conscience.

“Mrs. Roth.” The doctor caught her in the waiting room while
she was standing there blankly, trying to figure out where to go next.

She looked up at him, saw his tired eyes, silvered hair, and
tried to block out his words, but she couldn’t.

“Your husband has a heart condition,” she heard him say.

“Like Mame’s.” She nodded as if she understood.

He looked startled, then continued. “The condition is often
hereditary, yes.”

“He’s dying, isn’t he?” Now that she could breathe again,
she was starting to put two and two together. Damn, but she’d been so stupid.
Elliot had told her how his father died. Explained about Mame’s condition. Told
her why he did heart research. She should have known why he ate as he did. It wasn’t
heartburn.

“With the proper treatment, people with this condition can
live for years,” the doctor assured her. “He just overexerted himself this
evening. He needs rest and medication for the congestion. We’ll have to monitor
him to discover the extent of the damage.”

She barely heard anything beyond that. The strong, vital man
who’d made love to her and fought off desperate burglars for her was ill. He
could die. Not today maybe. Or tomorrow. But someday.

She wasn’t living through that hell again. She wasn’t giving
her heart away to be buried another time. She wasn’t. She wouldn’t. Elliot
would understand. He wouldn’t expect anything less.

She’d find Mame for him. And deliver Lucia. And take care of
Purple and the orchid if she must. He’d have to take care of himself. He could
do that. He’d been doing that for a very long time. He’d been doing much better
on his own than with her.

Someone helped her into the taxi. She didn’t remember getting
there herself. Once she was away from the hospital, the panic lessened. She
held Lucia, rocked her, and the poor little thing fell asleep against her
shoulder. If she could just look at the child as a task that must be
accomplished, she could do this. She’d survived the past year by giving herself
assignments and carrying them out. She’d always been an overachiever.

At the motel, the management apologized profusely, giving
them a new room where security had carried all their belongings. Even Purple,
looking shaken and confused, had been captured and now stared out at her from
the bars of his cage. The poor kitten couldn’t keep traveling like this. She’d
leave him with Lucia at the reservation. They’d both be happier there.

Maybe she’d keep the orchid. She didn’t have a home to take
it to, didn’t know where she was going after she found Mame, but it was just a
plant. She could keep it alive for a while. She hoped. Driving down life’s
highway with a plant by her side was just the right speed for her.

Alys laid the sleeping child in a bed and covered her up.
She would wait until morning, call the hospital and check on Elliot, then pack
up the car. While management was apologizing, she’d asked them to send Elliot’s
bag over to the hospital. She needn’t go back there. Just the idea of having to
find the hospital and go inside again caused her to hyperventilate.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to breathe
evenly. She sought her center, but visions of Elliot pale and unconscious on
the stretcher took up all the space in her brain. She changed the vision to
Elliot in his new cowboy shirt and jeans riding down the canyon, shouting and
waving his new hat in delight as the horse broke into a gallop. That was a good
image, a strong one, one that filled her with joy. It brought tears sliding
down her cheek, but she’d learned to live with tears.