Targeted (Firebrand Book 1) (21 page)

The half-whispered word was more a question than a statement, and he bent his head closer to her face so that she would know he was with her. “Yes, Lainey. I’m here. Don’t worry. We’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes.”

“M-Max,” she stammered.

“Don’t worry about Max. He’s fine. Casey and Colt are taking care of him.”

She gave a slight shake of her head. “Not what I mean.”

“Then what is it, Lainey?”

“Promise me. . .” she gasped.

His throat was so choked he could barely speak, but he forced the words out. “Yes, anything. What is it?”

For a moment her eyes grew large, and she stared up at him. She swallowed, and the muscles in her neck constricted. He’d seen that reflex in wounded men before, and he realized her airway might be swelling closed. Panic seized him, and he stared helplessly down at her as she struggled to speak. “If. . .If...I die...,” She wheezed in an effort to breath. “Take. . .take care. . .of Max.” Her eyes closed and then blinked open. “Needs you,” she gasped.

Her words stunned him so that he couldn’t answer her for a moment. “Don’t worry about Max, Lainey. You’re not going to die.”

Her body tensed, and her left hand clutched at the front of his shirt. He stared down into her eyes. “Pro-mise me. . .” she growled.

He wrapped his fingers around her hand, gently loosened it from his shirt, and lowered it to her side. “I promise I’ll take care of him, Lainey. We both will. We’ll do it together.”

A sigh rippled through her body, and the hint of a smile pulled at her lips before she closed her eyes and drifted into unconsciousness. As her words echoed in his mind, guilt over the harsh things he’d said to her since coming back home filled his heart. Lainey thought she was dying, and her main thought was to see that their son was taken care of.

He, on the other hand, had ranted and raved about how he’d been robbed of his son. His concerns had only been for himself, but it wouldn’t be that way again.

He leaned closer to Lainey and whispered in her ear. “Please forgive all the things I’ve said to you and the anger I’ve harbored about you for years. You and Max are the best things that ever happened to me, and I intend to make it up to you for not being there when you needed me. I promise.”

It didn’t matter whether or not she heard him. He knew what he had to do, and he would carry through on his promise. Then he leaned over and planted a soft kiss on her forehead.

<><><>

The far-off wail of a siren drifted into her ear. Where was it coming from? She lay still, unable to open her eyes, and tried to decide where she was. She could feel a rocking motion as if she was moving, but something steadied her. Something familiar.

She turned her head slightly and burrowed her face against the wall that seemed to be holding her in place. A scent she remembered from long ago filled her as she inhaled. She tried to recall what it was, but only fuzzy visions and thoughts filled her mind. She inhaled once more. A masculine smell she’d once known. After shave. That’s what it was. A scent from so long ago that she couldn’t remember where she’d encountered it, but she knew it meant safety.

A voice she couldn’t place spoke from far away, its words echoing in her head and making her mouth go dry with fear. “The hospital is just ahead. Get ready.”

“I see it.”

Those words came from the wall where she was leaning. But was it a wall? Something tightened around her and pulled her closer, and the soft brush that touched her forehead reminded her of her mother’s goodnight kisses when she was a little girl. With an inner sigh she relaxed. Whatever was holding her wouldn’t let go. It would keep her safe, and she could sleep. 

Then there were more voices, all talking at once, and she was being lifted onto a flat table. With all the strength she could muster, she forced her eyelids to open and blinked at the bright light above. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, but she could make out the fuzzy outline of people moving all around her. One seemed to be barking out orders to the others, but she could only catch a word now and then of what was being said.

“Temperature 103 degrees. . .antivenom serum. . .IV started.”

Her head hurt, and someone kept poking and prodding her body. She wanted to tell them to leave her alone, let her rest. But try as she might the words wouldn’t come. She shivered with cold and tried to raise her arms to cover her body, but they wouldn’t move.

Who were these people? Why didn’t she feel safe anymore? Ash had promised to protect her and Max. Where was he?

“Ash!” His name exploded from her dry mouth.

A hand caressed her head, and a warm breath fanned her ear. “I’m right here, Lainey. I won’t leave you.”

She tried to respond, but her tongue suddenly felt so large it seemed to fill her whole mouth. Her chest tightened, and she felt as she was suffocating.

From far off she heard a strange voice shouting. “Shock. . .hurry!”

She wheezed, but she still couldn’t breathe. There was nothing to do but let the darkness overtake her.

<><><>

Someone shoved Ash away from Lainey’s bed, and a team of doctors and nurses circled her. From where he now stood he didn’t have a clear view of her face, but he knew something critical had happened.

“What is it?” he yelled. “What’s the matter with her?”

The doctor who appeared to be in charge
didn’t answer but barked out another order. “Oxygen!” he said, and a nurse inserted a cannula into her nostrils.

He’d seen that on the battlefield before. His stomach roiled at the memory of a combat-trained medic doing that to a wounded soldier gasping for breath. He’d stood helplessly by as that young soldier died, and he’d lost a part of himself that day, too. But this was Lainey, and he didn’t think he could survive watching her take her last breath.

As the team pressed closer to her bed, Ash tried to take in the barked orders and the responses. Each person was totally absorbed in the drama playing out in front of them, each performing their duties with the precision of a well-oiled machine. It was as if he was an invisible spectator in the room.

“Increase IV flow,” the doctor said. He glanced up at the nurse. “How long since the last injection?”

“Two minutes, doctor.”

“Increase dosage to 10 mcgs.”

Ash could stand it no longer. “Tell me what’s happening!” he yelled.

The doctor glanced over his shoulder. “She’s gone into anaphylactic shock. We’re trying to bring her out of it.”

“Is she going to die?”
      

“Not if we can help it,” the doctor muttered. He jerked his head toward the door. “Maybe it would be better if you waited in the hall.”

The doctor turned back to his task, and Ash staggered from the room and into the hallway. He leaned against the wall and then slid downward until he sat on the floor, his elbows resting on his bent knees and his face buried in his hands. How could this be happening? An hour ago he was getting ready to tell Lainey she had nothing to fear from him. That he would work with her to give Max a good life. Now she was about to die, and all he could think about was her plea for him to take care of Max.

“Are you okay?”

Ash pulled his hands away from his face and looked up at Reese who towered above him. He held two cups of coffee. Ash pushed to his feet, grateful to see his friend. At a time like this he didn’t think he could stand to be alone. He needed the strength of the man who’d been beside him on missions where death had stalked them at every turn. Now it hovered near them again in the room where the emergency room personnel worked feverishly to keep Lainey alive.

He reached for one of the cups, and his hand shook so badly he had to wrap both of them around the Styrofoam cup. “Lainey has gone into shock. They’re trying to get her stabilized.”

Reese darted a glance toward the curtained-off room where the doctors and nurses were working. The muscle in his jaw flexed. “They know what they’re doing, Ash. We need to let them do their jobs.” Reese took a deep breath. “I just talked to Casey.”

Ash had heard that ragged tone of voice many times before when they were about to embark on a mission that might prove fatal for some of their men. His level of concern shot to a new high at the thought that Casey had some other bad news. His heart thudded to the pit of his stomach at the thought there was only one thing that could be worse right now. He swallowed hard before asking the question lodged in his throat.  “What is it, Reese? Has something happened to Max?”

Reese shook his head. “No, nothing’s happened to him. She said he went ballistic on her after we left. He blames himself for not being with his mother when it happened. He feels guilty that he asked her to let him stay with you. Now he’s blaming himself because he thinks he didn’t do enough to protect his mother.”

Ash raked his hand through his hair and uttered a muffled groan. “But Max is a kid. It’s not his job to be the man of the family. That’s what I was supposed to do, and I didn’t do it.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known there would be a snake in that closet.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Ash swallowed and almost gagged at the lump in his throat. “Lainey was pregnant with Max. My child, not Richard’s. I should have been there for her ten years ago, but I wasn’t.”

“Ash, please, don’t beat yourself up over the past.”

“But I let her down that day, Reese, just like I’ve been doing to the people I love all my life. If I had listened to her back then, things would be different now. And she wouldn’t be about to die because of a mistake I made down in Mexico.” He  turned and struck his fist against the wall. Coffee exploded from the cup at the sudden movement, and Ash’s gaze followed the brown trail as it trickled down the wall.

Reese reached around him and mopped at the stain with some napkins he pulled from his pocket. “You’ve got to get hold of yourself or you’re not going to be any help to Max. Think about him right now. Lainey is a strong woman. She’s going to come through this okay.”

Ash turned around to face Reese. “I knew something bad was about to happen when I received that text.”

“What text?”

“Back at the training center. It was from Eve. She said she was sorry she missed me at the school but she’d be seeing me soon, maybe at the training center. She implied something was going to happen, but I didn’t take it seriously. That snake didn’t just happen to crawl into Lainey’s room. I think it was put in her closet by someone.”

Reese’s forehead wrinkled. “I think you’re probably right..”

“You do?” Ash asked.

“Yeah. You know Casey did a lot of research about the poisonous snakes we might have to deal with in the area where we’re building the center. There are only two venomous snakes in western North Carolina, the Northern Copperhead and the Timber Rattlesnake.”

Ash’s skin prickled. When Reese began an explanation with ‘you know’, there was some information coming that would prove troubling. “And?” he prompted.

Reese took a deep breath. “And Casey discovered something when she was cleaning up the room where Lainey was bitten. The snake that bit Lainey was neither of those two. It was an Eastern Diamondback Rattler.”

Ash’s heart thudded, and he squeezed the coffee cup he held. “Is she sure?”

“Yeah. The Timber Rattlesnake has a pinkish background on a solid color with an orange or brown streak running down its back. The one that bit Lainey was gray and had a series of dark diamonds outlined in black on its back and two lines running down each side of its head.”

“But it was a rattlesnake? Right?

Reese nodded. “It was. The only problem is that it was an Eastern Diamondback Rattler. Those rattlers live in the flat, sandy coastal plain of eastern North Carolina. Not in the mountains in the western part of the state.”

  “So I was right. There’s no way a rattlesnake whose habitat is 400 miles away could end up in a closet at Firebrand without someone putting it there.”

“Yeah, that’s the way I see it. What other explanation can there be?” Reese said.

“But who could have gotten past us? Do you think it could be one of our own guys?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out. I promise you that.”

Ash didn’t answer but stepped across the hall, tossed his half-empty coffee cup into a trash can. He shook his head and turned to face Reese. “I’ve done it again.”

A puzzled expression lined Reese’s face. “What have you done?”

Ash took a deep breath. “I’ve failed Lainey again. I promised her I would protect her, and I didn’t. I let myself get too distracted when I found out Max is my son.” He paused. closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I forgot what I was supposed to be doing, and somebody got to her.”

 
      
Reese opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the doctor stepped out of Lainey’s room. “Mr. DeHan,” he said.

Ash lunged across the hall to where the doctor stood. “How is she?”

“She’s stable at the moment but still unconscious. She’s responding to the medication, and we’ve inserted a breathing tube to help her breathe easier. Do you know if she has a history of anaphylaxis?”

Uncomprehending the question, Ash shook his head. “What’s that?”