Live (The Burnside Series): The Burnside Series (26 page)

He recalled Destiny in his posture, straight and formal. He could be a man anywhere between twenty and a well-preserved sixty, but Hefin knew him to be younger than Destiny, who was ten years younger than he.

Enigmatic was an understated observation about these Burnsides.

“PJ?” At Destiny’s whisper, Paul suddenly moved—pushed his sunglasses into his curls and leaned forward—both of his were the same blue as Sarah’s one blue eye.

“Can you check your phone? Just in case Lacey or Sam managed to text?”

“I have the chime volume all the way up, Desbaby.”

“I know. But sometimes the hospital kind of messes everything up? Could you just check?”

“Sure.” He pulled a huge smartphone from his jeans’ pocket and slid it on, shook his head. Destiny tightened beside him even more.

“How long has she been in there?”

Paul shrugged and turned to look at the double doors. “A couple of hours?”

The doors began to push open from the inside and both Paul and Destiny started to stand up. Hefin put his arm around her waist—he was worried that fatigue and lack of food would buckle her knees.

Thank Christ, it was Lacey.

She walked toward them, a pretty woman he’d hardly met with big navy eyes that tipped down at the corners and a mouth whose corners tipped up so that she seemed wry and knowing.

He liked best how she loved Destiny, how she fussed over her. In the middle of all the chaos when everyone had arrived in the Emergency Department, it was Lacey who stopped and checked in on Destiny, held her hands, talked to her softly, gave her a little packet of tissues.

He liked this Lacey with her messy hair and easy laugh.

Paul liked her too, a great deal it seemed, and he wondered if everyone had noticed that or if it was just that Hefin could pick another sad bastard out of the crowd.

Paul approached Lacey first and wrapped his arm around her elbow to lead her to a chair like she was the Queen of England. Lacey smiled, but made a cross-eyed face at Destiny.

Everyone had noticed.

As Lacey pulled a notepad out of the pocket on her scrubs, Hefin watched a blush
spread from her neck.

Hmm. Maybe Paul would not be a sad bastard forever.

He caught Paul’s eyes and raised his eyebrows. Paul looked away, but there was something like a smile of acknowledgment that emerged, first. He thought he’d like to have a pint with Paul, and the thought surprised him.

The last pint he’d had with anyone was an awkward round with his crew at the library. They’d done their best to include him in their banter, but he’d had a hard time mustering it. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy their company. He did. His crew was talented and funny. But by the time he’d assembled his crew, he knew he was leaving Ohio, and it’s hard to make friends with one foot out the door.

Everyone always told Hefin he was the duplicate of his dad. Amazing, really, as Hefin was adopted, and mixed-race, though it was as if those in his small town forgot that more and more over the years. Hefin and his dad had always shared odd similarities. Like the social reluctance. Left-handedness. Sweet tooth. A preference for ebullient women.

When he’d brought Jessica around, already falling, he’d thought his dad would understand, and he had, he truly did, and Jessica and his mum had got on so well. But something never completely cleared from his dad’s eyes. He didn’t ask what it was then.

He wanted to know, now.

He wanted to sit in his dad’s workshop and show him what he’d learned. His dad would love that. He was already over the moon that Hefin had found a way back to carving, and his dad had spent more time on the phone with him, sent longer emails, than he ever had. True, they were mostly
about
carving, but Hefin knew what his dad was trying to say.

Come home.

He wanted this, what he saw here in the waiting room, the instinctive closing of ranks and clasping of hands.

He also wanted Destiny’s hand in his, their fingers woven together, when he went.

He had been so close to answering her differently when she asked him, almost asked him, if he would consider staying. But then he thought of how he had grown so ugly, resenting Jessica. He thought about his mum and dad, who hadn’t seen him, really seen him—video chatting didn’t count—in years. He missed them. He missed home. He missed the sea. He missed sticky toffee pudding at the Harbourmaster Hotel and taking the sailboat out and sleeping with the window open to the sounds of the sea. There was
something he needed from home.

And then, once he’d scrubbed away the rot in Wales, the world was ready to make a home, to make work, just for him.

Yet, he had been so close to answering her differently because there was something that was home inside of Destiny.

If only all of Destiny’s home weren’t here.

If only he didn’t know precisely what it was to walk away from home.

If only a dome made of twigs could be the whole world and all of home for both of them.

If only Sarah could be well, really well, and erase the terrified worry from her family’s eyes.

If only tea and biscuits fixed everything.

If only he weren’t a goose person.

Because though his heart had been reduced to a motor, it was enough to power it in the direction of the light shining from Destiny Burnside.

His heart had been greedy, too, falling in love with a woman like this. A woman who could somehow give him back what he had lost, his
percent
, she’d said. Of course, the exchange was to lose her. Terrible rate of exchange. Terrible love.

He held her about the waist. He could feel her heart beating everywhere, her muscles stiff, and it scared him. In bed, in the wee hours this morning, he’d awoken because she had been so soft and still in his arms. It had been so long since he had fallen asleep with a woman against him he had actually been unable to sleep from the comfort of it. Her heart had been slow and steady, her skin almost overwarm against his under the covers.

He’d wanted her again, felt wretched for wanting her again, but then she’d relaxed against him so completely, it had ached. It had taken ages, it seemed, of softly touching her, hands over her arms and belly and hip. Her breasts. But then she was right with him, so suddenly and so utterly.

Over her, his face in the back of her neck, her hair, he’d be overcome with that feeling that he was fully present. He hadn’t been reworking his past trying to find the spot where he could have made it come out right. He hadn’t been flying away to some moment with the sea in front of him and everything else behind him.

He had only been with Destiny. Inside her. Around her. His heart and breath loud
in his ears, right then, keeping him alive right then.

His unreasonable love for her freed, right then. Hers. All hers.

“What it is, Lace?” Destiny asked. “Please.”

Hefin eased Destiny down to sit. Lacey looked at her notepad for a moment. Paul put his hand between her shoulder blades, rubbing in circles, and Lacey closed her eyes just for a moment.

“Okay. First, I want you guys to know she’s going to be okay. Right now, she’s stable.”

Destiny reached for his hand, held tight. “Okay,” she breathed. “Okay.”

Lacey looked at Destiny. “She had what’s called a pulmonary embolism. For Sarah, this was another complication of her surgeries and reduced mobility, lately. Blood in the deep veins of our legs gets back to the heart and lungs by muscles moving around them. Also, veins are vulnerable to stress and can get inflamed. Sarah was on blood thinners in the hospital, and for a while after her surgeries, but not lately, and she still needed them. A clot formed in a deep vein of her leg, below her injured hip, and broke free. When it traveled to her lungs, she went into severe respiratory distress until she received thrombolysis treatment with a special drug.”

Destiny squeezed harder. Her tears had finally come, so he grabbed the napkins he had brought with her biscuits and handed her one. She took it, but just looked at it. Held it while tears dripped from her chin. He felt sick.

“But you said she’d be okay?”

Lacey took a deep breath. “PJ found her in time. She got the tPA in time. She was taken into this department in case they had to insert a special filter in her large vessels. They decided not to. Right now, an orthopedic specialist is consulting with the thoracic surgeon who was on standby. She’s stable, and over the most dangerous part, but they are very concerned about her hip. The pinning should have worked in a patient her age, but it’s not healing correctly.

“Her problems have been going on for too long. She’s been healing for too long. Been in pain for too long. The problem is, right now, she’s not a candidate for surgery.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s going to be on blood thinners for a while. Her nutritional status is poor. She has an abscess and it’s not responding to antibiotics.”

“She’s staying with me. Sam and I already decided. I can help, a lot.”

“Oh, honey,” Lacey said, her big eyes sad. “Sarah’s being transferred to the rehabilitation unit until she’s cleared for the surgery her team decides will provide the best outcome.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’ll be hospitalized in that unit for at least twelve weeks.”

Even Hefin felt his breath catch in his throat. Destiny hunched over, and he followed the curve of her back with his arm, trying to cover her, protect her. Paul had gone pale. Three months in this place? He couldn’t imagine, seeing the brief glimpse of who Sarah really was in her face, that she’d tolerate it.

“Oh my God, Lace.”

“I know. But you guys, Sarah is young. And when she was injured, she was ridiculously healthy. She knows how to work. I know she’s motivated to recover. She’ll have pain guys on call, all the time. PT will work with her every single day. Dieticians, too. She’s really motivated. I think this is a good thing.”

“Lace?”

“Yeah, Desbaby?”

“I was there, earlier, before PJ. She was tired, but okay. Her hip hurt. Her leg too. Was that because? Could I?” Destiny couldn’t say it, and she finally started crying in earnest. Hefin just held on. He wished he could take her out of this foul-smelling, ugly place. Let her cry. Bring Lacey to convince her it would be okay because he was certain he was out of his depth on that one.

He had been carving bits and pieces of Ohio for weeks. Lived here for years.

It hadn’t ever felt like a home until this moment. This terrible moment in this terrible waiting room with these people receiving terrible news. It should have felt like home when he arrived here with the woman he was in love with.

Instead, it felt like home when he was getting ready to leave the woman he loved behind.

So he held Destiny while she started to cry and looked at Lacey and willed her to tell her that none of this was Destiny’s fault.

“You couldn’t have done anything, Desbaby. There was no way for you to know.”

Hefin relaxed when he felt Destiny relax.

Then Lacey looked down at her notepad again and Hefin watched as she gripped it. Hard. Her brows dipped in. She looked up, at him, and met his eyes for a long moment
and Hefin felt the entire world slip from under their feet.

“The thing is, honey.” Lacey kept her eyes on Hefin. “You know Sam.”

Destiny’s back locked. “What is it? Lace? Please.”

“Sam is such a fucking idiot,” is what Lacey said.

“Lacey?” Hefin interrupted. “Destiny’s had a long night.”

“It’s okay. What’d he say?”

“Sarah was asked about how long she’s had leg pain. Leg pain, versus hip pain.”

Destiny sat straight up. Put her hands over her mouth. “Oh shit. Shit! Lace. Lacey, when I was over, she—”

“Look, I know. Actually she’s probably been having it for a while. But Sam is a total dick right now. You know how he is, he blames himself so much that he has extra for everyone else.”

PJ stood up and pulled his sunglasses back down. “I’m going to get a coffee. Des?”

Des shook her head, her color an alarming map of red and white splotches. “I remember, the first time she was in the hospital, the nurses asking all the time if her legs hurt. The information about the clot stuff was in her discharge. I think they said it like a thousand times. Oh God, Lace. I just—didn’t even. I didn’t even think about it. I was … 
Angry
with her. I’d already been over there. She was … Oh my
God
.”

Hefin moved to put both arms around her and she jerked away, he looked at Lacey, and was livid to see her hesitate. “Destiny, I was there too. You made her food. You had been over earlier. She wasn’t clear about her pain, or her problems. I don’t—”

“You have no idea, Hefin. Just
don’t
.”

“Hefin’s right, Des. He’s right. This is not on you. I am only, reluctantly, saying anything at all because Sam can’t calm down and is yelling at all of us. Sarah, too. He was almost kicked out twice. It’s unreasonable for you to think about and apply discharge info from all that time ago. Of everyone, you’ve been there for Sarah. Sam’s just mad at himself. For good reason.”

“I’ve got to see her.”

Lacey started shaking her head even as she answered. “She’s going to go up to ICU. One family member at a time, you have Hefin here, and—”

“He’s going.”

Hefin closed his eyes. Tried to stay right where he was.

“It’s not that, Des, it’s that Sam’s going to stay. It’s probably the only thing he can tolerate, and it’s better because he should probably be alone, anyway, and he can get around the visiting regulations and stay with her continuously.”

“I’m staying.”

“You’ll be in the ICU waiting room all day, Des.”

“I don’t care. When Sam is willing to switch out with me, I want to see her.”

“Sam is—”

“I can deal with Sam.”

Destiny turned to him. She was exhausted, her eyes swollen with blueish lumps pushing under the thin skin around her eyes. The mica shards had all gone green, but flat, jadelike. He had no business leaving her like this. No business leaving anyone like this.

“I’ll stay with you.”

“No. I know it’s not fair, because it’s hard to deal with, but please do me a favor and drive the limo home. Give the keys to Betty next door. Or if Lacey needs a ride home, take her. She can drive it. I’m sorry, you’ll have to take a cab home from my place.”