Erica's Choice (31 page)

Flying at the stretcher, Corey managed to yank it backward. It rolled out of the path of the oncoming car but his own momentum couldn’t be reversed as easily.

Corey could do nothing but brace for impact as he connected with the fast-moving hood of the V8.

Chapter Seventeen

Griff’s mobile rang but he let it go to voicemail as he stalked after Erica. His swift strides took him out into the hall, to a row of grey metal lockers where she stood leaning with her head in her hands.

“He deserves another chance,” he told her gruffly. “You blindsided him, Erica. You shocked the hell out of both of us, and the second Corey made a mistake you cut him out. Now you’re trying to cut me out too, and I won’t let you.”

When she lifted her face, there were tears streaming down her cheeks. “Didn’t you hear anything I said this morning?”

“I heard every damn word. I also saw how scared you were telling us that, how scared you’ve been all this time. Sweetheart, Corey’s
crushed
that you thought you had to go through it on your own.”

By the look on her face, by her parted lips, Griff could tell she had all her arguments lined up, about how she could handle anything by herself and that she was right not to tell Corey considering how he’d reacted. They were going to start going around in circles if he didn’t do something to stop it.

So he stopped it the most efficient way he knew how. He drew her up against him and slanted his mouth over hers, smothering every objection, every stupid sacrifice she was trying to make. She moaned and melted against him as though all thought of protest went out of her mind the second his lips touched hers, consumed by the fire that was their attraction.

Their love.

Griff let it consume him too, warming all those places inside that had stayed cold for so long. He pressed her up against the lockers and kissed her until the metal at Erica’s back shook, until he was out of breath and she was too.

He drew in a ragged gulp of air as he pulled back and stared into her face. “Is this what you’re trying to save us from? How right it feels when we kiss? How perfectly our bodies fit together?”

The befuddled expression made way for sadness again, but Griff stopped that train of thought before she could let it take root. “Everyone’s body changes with time, Erica. Yours will just change faster, and for the better, because that operation will keep you safe. And Corey and I want you safe more than we want anything in the world.”

“He was repulsed,” she whispered, pain strangling the words. “He won’t be able to look at me.”

“Corey loves you.” He cupped her face so she had to hold his gaze. “I love you, Red. And love, for me, has never been about body parts. Do you think I wouldn’t love Corey if he wasn’t good looking and criminally well hung?”

A surprised laugh spurted out of her, mingling with the sob she’d been holding back. “Oh, Griff.”

“You know I’d love him no matter what because it’s his openness I love, his modesty and kindness, the fact he can’t help letting his emotions get the better of him. Just like I love your bravery and your dignity and grace, and the fact you refuse to let your emotions rule you. You hold them in like you’re doing everyone a favor with this stoic martyr shit. Aren’t you sick of being on your own?” Griff leaned his forehead against hers and admitted with a shuddering breath. “I know I am. I want you and Corey in my life, and it’s long past time I fought for that—for both of you. You hear that, Erica? I’m not giving up.”

Her exhaled breath mingled with his, and Griff heard surrender in the sound. She weakened against him, the fight ebbing out of her. “Then I suppose it’s lucky I love the fact you can be a stubborn, know-it-all a-hole.”

“A-hole?” Griff chuckled, relieved beyond measure. It was going to be all right. He’d make sure of it. “After all the things you’ve said to me, you still can’t curse for the life of you.”

“Asshole then. You’re an asshole, Dale Griffin.”

“Well done, sweetheart.” He held her tight to his length, breathing in her familiar scent like it was oxygen. “I’m your asshole. Don’t forget it.”

His phone rang again, the mobile bleating out the opening bars of “Smoke on the Water”. The last thing he wanted to do was let Erica go, but the thought that it might be Corey had him reaching for the phone.

It wasn’t Corey. “Griff, it’s Steve.”

Something in the other man’s tone put Griff’s instincts on high alert. A rolling sense of dread purled through him, and he knew, just
knew
, something was wrong.
Please God, please not Corey.
“What’s happened?”

“There was an accident. We were at an MVA and a couple of kids hyped up on speed didn’t like waiting in the jam with the cops hanging around. It was the strangest thing. They just freaked out and drove into the accident scene.” Steve Waller’s tone gave away how astonished he was by what he’d apparently seen. “They hit him.”

Griff didn’t have to ask who Steve was talking about, even though he probably would have been on the call list if any member of the team had been in an accident. His entire body froze even as his mind screamed.

“How bad is it?” He almost choked on the question. His blood performed a slow, painful thud as it travelled through his veins. If Waller told him Corey was dead, Griff felt sure it would stop altogether and he’d die too, in one blinding explosion of unspeakable agony.

“Pretty bad.” Pretty bad meant he was still alive, but Griff wasn’t ready to breathe quite yet. “He was thrown into the air a good way, landed fairly hard. He was still unconscious when they took him to hospital.”

“Which one?” Griff listened to the details, already calculating how long it would take him to reach the inner-city hospital. “Has someone called his family?”

“We’re on it. Griff…” Steve’s voice broke. “They almost ran down one of the accident victims, a pregnant woman. Corey jumped in front of the car instead. He saved her life.”

That’s my Corey.
He wouldn’t have hesitated, Griff knew. Pride filled him even as his heart ached, suspended painfully in his chest.

“Dale.”

He turned to see Erica staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. He muttered something to Steve and disconnected the call, realizing only then how tight he was holding her. So tight she wasn’t breathing either. “It’s Corey,” he rasped.

Abruptly Erica shoved against him, escaping his hold and sprinting down the hall. She yelled for her friend Pam, who emerged from another classroom wearing a concerned expression. Pam must have agreed to watch Erica’s class because a second later she was back. Without a word, Griff and Erica hurried from the school building.

Corey spent most of the night in surgery. Erica wouldn’t have thought it possible to fall asleep in the most uncomfortable chairs ever invented, but sometime before dawn a nurse roused her from a doze she hadn’t been aware of falling into. “Your friend’s been taken to ICU. You can come through and see him now.”

Erica’s head was resting on Griff’s shoulder. She turned to face him and saw he was awake, his hazel irises rimmed in pink. He didn’t look as though he’d slept at all.

Throughout the long horrible night, they’d barely said a word to each other, neither of them wanting to voice the frightening possibility that Corey might not make it through. The very thought of it filled Erica with an aching sense of dread. As though Griff sensed it, he squeezed her hand. He hadn’t let go of it since that phone call yesterday afternoon, and his constant touch was the only thing keeping her from screaming.

“The surgery went well.” Erica wasn’t mollified by the surgeon’s opening statement. She was well acquainted with the tendency of medical professionals to lead with the good—and follow up with sucker punches. “He has a few broken bones, some cracked ribs and various lacerations and bruising. We’ve stopped the internal bleeding but the trauma to his head was significant. He’s in a coma, but there’s every chance he’ll wake up in the next day or two. A coma is common with this kind of head injury.”

Common or not, the thought of Corey lying unconscious in a hospital bed with all those injuries was sickening. A shudder tore through Erica, and Griff wound his arm around her shoulders, supporting her.

Supporting her, as she had never wanted him or Corey to have to do. Now she needed Griff more than she ever thought it possible to need another person. The thought of Corey so badly broken had felled her every inner strength more completely than anything she’d faced before.

Once the doctor moved away, the ICU nurse approached them. “You can go in to see him, but only for a few minutes.”

He looked so much smaller lying in the hospital bed. Corey was a large man, but it was the power of his personality that made him seem like such a giant. Now, the crackling vivacity that Corey exuded like a life force was conspicuous by its absence. It was that, even more than the beeping of the heart-rate monitor and the damage to his body that broke Erica down.

She didn’t care about the stupid fight they’d had. Griff was right—she’d sprung her news on them and then unfairly expected them to take it in their stride. The worries—self-centered worries—that had consumed her for weeks melted away in the face of this crisis. All that mattered now was Corey.

Erica sobbed his name, approaching the side of the bed tentatively and slipping her hand into his. His fingers remained lax and unresponsive on the mattress. “Please come back to us.”

Beside her, she felt Griff’s presence and knew he was silently pleading for the same thing.

Morning came and Corey’s sister Sasha arrived, as did several guys from the fire station. Griff told everyone what was going on, over and over, his voice flat and lifeless.

The day wore on, endless hours characterized by barely tasted coffee and tense silences. As late afternoon approached and Corey still had not woken, Griff suggested gently, “Why don’t I take you home, Erica. You can have a shower and grab something to eat.”

The thought of food made her stomach roil. “I can’t leave him.”

“You need to rest.”

“Are you going home?”

The look on his face said it all. Griff couldn’t bring himself to leave any more than Erica could. Yet he said, “I’ll go get us a change of clothes and then come straight back. Look out for him for me.”

Erica sat in the waiting room while Corey’s sister took her turn beside her brother’s bed. The grey of an overcast day seeping into twilight filtered through the hospital windows. Appearing grimy and cold, it illuminated Erica’s bitter self-recriminations.

Erica could kick herself for the time she’d wasted dithering, fixating on her own mortality and disregarding the risks Corey and Griff took every day on the job. All this time, they had been in as much danger as she had, but she’d been too self-involved to see it. Obsessed with her own problems, using them as an excuse to keep the two most amazing men she’d ever met at arm’s length. Why? Because she didn’t trust them to be there for her when she needed them.

She was ashamed of herself. Just watching the way the Ashton Heights firefighters had rallied around each other today proved how wrong she was. Corey and Griff were both the loyal type. They’d stick by her if she let them, no matter what she had to go through.

And what she had to go through was nothing compared to what lay ahead for Corey—if he woke up. Bile scored a path up her throat as the thought penetrated. Erica rushed out of the hospital, into the gardens, sure she was going to throw up. But she had barely eaten since lunch yesterday and soon the spinning sensation passed. She struggled to get ahold of herself.
Pam.
She ought to call Pam and give her an update. She’d left her hanging yesterday.

When Erica switched on her phone, there was a message that made her blood rush away like a fast-receding tide. Corey’s disembodied voice filtered into her ear, forcing the bustle of the hospital and the city beyond to seep into the background.

I don’t know what to say other than I love you. I lost my mind the second you mentioned cancer, and I’ve been trying to get it back since. The way I spoke to you was unforgivable. What I should have done was held you close and told you the truth—that no matter what, I’ll be there. I’ll help you through anything you have to go through because you’re my girl and I’d rather die than let you down. I want to tell you all this in person, baby, if you’ll agree to let me. I need you and Griff more than…

The rest of what he’d been about to say was drowned out by the shrill wail of a siren. The call he’d received that had taken him to the accident site where he’d been so badly injured. The thought that this message might be the last recording of Corey’s voice made her knees buckle and a sob tear from her throat. Through her blurry vision she saw Griff running toward her, dropping the bag he held as he reached out his arms and caught her before she fell.

“He left me a m-message.” Erica held on to the phone so hard her knuckles turned white. “The last thing Corey thought of me was that I might not forgive him for… I’ve been so selfish!”

“Shh, no,” Griff crooned. “You were scared.”

But it was nothing on how terrified she was now, merely contemplating the possibility that she wouldn’t hear Corey’s voice again. That he’d never smile at her and call her baby, or tease her about her love of corny chick flicks, or lift her effortlessly into his arms and swing her around until she was dizzy and laughing. “I can’t bear it, Dale. I can’t.”