Yesterday's Roses (33 page)

Feeling as if he would go crazy if he didn't do something to help his friend, he asked, “Is there something I can do?”

“Light,” Jake rasped in reply. For though he could feel Hallie touching him, he wanted to see her face.

Hallie exchanged a worried look with Seth. What could she tell Jake? That his eyes were swollen shut from the heat and smoke and that she couldn't promise that his vision would be restored even after the swelling was gone? She had cleaned his eyes the best she could, but his eyelids were so badly swollen that she couldn't open them enough to determine if there was damage. Only time would tell.

“Light … n-now.” His voice came out in a soft gurgle. Then he choked as something thick and wet clogged his throat. Painfully, he surrendered to a paroxysm of coughing.

Hallie carefully eased Jake's head into her lap, where she held him until his hacking stopped. He sounded as if his chest was being ripped apart, and by the tears seeping from the corners of his eyes, she could tell that it felt as bad as it sounded. As Hallie swabbed the dark mucus from his nose and mouth, she was horrified to see that it was tinged with blood.

“Light.”

Swallowing hard, she tried to inject a note of encouragement into her voice. “Your eyes are swollen shut … from the heat and smoke. You'll be fine in a few days.” She prayed that she was right.

Jake lay silently absorbing the meaning of her words—and the false note of cheerfulness in her tone. Had he heard her breath catch as well?

Strange. When you're blind, every subtle shading of the voice reveals the truth behind the words.
He felt his guts twist with dread.

Blind. Was that why Hallie had sounded so distressed? Was she groping for a gentle way to tell him the truth? A sob escaped Jake's lips. The very thought of living the rest of his life in such helplessness was devastating.

“Your eyes will be fine. I promise.” And if God couldn't forgive her that lie, then so be it. Hallie could read the fear in every tense line of Jake's body, and there was nothing she wouldn't say or do to reassure him.

“Will you trust me, darling?” she whispered, gently stroking his heaving chest.

He nodded once and calmed beneath her touch.

“Good. You also inhaled a lot of heat and smoke, and your air passages are swollen. That's why it's so hard to breathe.” She paused while he succumbed to another fit of coughing.

“Your lungs are badly irritated from the smoke, and they're full of secretions. I know it hurts, but you need to try to cough up all the mucus. Can you do that for me?”

“Try.”

“Good.” She could only hope he had the strength to do it.

In the long hours since they'd arrived at the house, Hallie had had a chance to fully examine Jake. His body was as badly bruised as if he had been severely beaten, and the forearm he'd used to clear the glass from the window frame was deeply gashed.

Gently she touched his bandaged left arm. Thanks to Seth Tyler, she had been able to stitch his worst wounds properly.

Hallie smiled gratefully at Seth, who was kneeling next to Jake recounting a naughty story involving a prostitute and a donkey. When this was all over, she intended to find out exactly where the man had found a medical kit to replace her burned one. After all, it was Christmas night.

“Hallie?”

“I'm here, darling,” she crooned, seeing Jake groping the air around him, searching for her. Tenderly, she took his hand in hers and cupped his cheek with her other palm. Like a kitten to its mother's belly, he nuzzled against her.

At least Chief Killian had been right about the burns,
she thought, staring at his beloved features. Jake's face was in no worse condition than if he had received a very bad sunburn. It probably hurt, but barring infection, there should be no scars.

She watched as Jake tried to smile at the punch line of Seth's story. Dear God! How she loved him! He was such a strong, brave man. It broke her heart to see him so vulnerable.

Hallie felt tears prick her eyelids. If only she could help him, make him better. But, of course, there wasn't much she could do. Except pray.

And put dry sheets on the bed. Which she did with Seth's assistance. When the bed was made and Jake comfortably propped against a mound of pillows with a cooling compress on his eyes, she set about bathing him.

As she gently washed his male parts, Hallie was amazed at how at ease she felt handling him so intimately. Strange to think that even as recently as two days ago, she thought of touching him down there as an embarrassing ordeal. Now it seemed perfectly natural. Jake obviously agreed, for after tensing briefly at the feel of the wet cloth, he relaxed and lay still beneath her ministrations.

“Like it … touch … there,” Jake wheezed. And she did. Not that he was any more capable of getting an erection at the moment than he was of flying to the moon. Still, he liked the fact that she cared enough to tend to him so personally. Especially when she could have just as easily summoned Celine to do it. The intimacy of her actions made him feel secure in her love.

He heard her chuckle as she swaddled what felt like a thick cloth between his legs and secured one end over his manhood.

“You're a rogue, Jake Parrish,” she teased, giving her handiwork a final pat. As she pulled the warm covers up over his nakedness, she added, “I don't doubt that you'll revert to your old ways soon enough and accuse me of poking at you.”

“Never—” but Jake was overcome by an agonizing attack of coughing before he was able to finish his sentence. God, it hurt! He was sure he'd die if he didn't catch his breath.

Then he felt Hallie slip her hand in his, and he clung to it with the desperation of a drowning man. Her touch gave him strength; it comforted him.

“I love you,” he heard her murmur, and he felt her press a kiss to his forehead. When his coughing finally ceased, Jake lay limp and trembling, fighting for his breath.

Hallie was terrified. He sounded worse, much worse.

The rattling in his chest scared her, and he was getting weaker.

Struggling to keep the panic out of her voice, she whispered, “Try and sleep now. It's past midnight. You need to rest.”

“Stay?” he gasped. The effort almost choked him.

Hallie squeezed the hand in hers. “Forever,” she vowed.

If only she could promise him a lifetime first.

Chapter 21

By the following morning, it became apparent that Jake's injuries were as bad as Hallie had originally feared. His condition had deteriorated during the night, and by noon his fever had begun to rise at an alarming rate.

Every breath he drew sent him into paroxysms of coughing, doubling him over to clutch painfully at his midsection, gasping for the air he was unable to inhale. And like those of a stallion brutally run to ground, his nostrils and lips became flecked with a dark, bloody foam.

“Try to breathe slowly, darling,” Hallie coaxed, as Jake began to thrash wildly about on the bed, making frantic choking sounds. Tenderly, she stroked his chest and, to her relief, he eventually calmed beneath her hand.

He was so helpless in his blindness, so terrified of being left alone. All through the night, he had clung desperately to her hand, growing panicked if she broke contact even for a moment.

Never in her brief medical career had Hallie felt such frustration as she did now, watching the man she loved struggle for his life.

Insidiously the fever snaked into Jake's brain, coiling around his consciousness and squeezing out his last vestiges of lucidity. With the delirium came violence.

Baring his teeth in a growl, he struck out at the shadowy assailants lurking in the corners of his febrile mind, cursing in a manner colorful enough to bring a blush even to the worldly Seth Tyler's cheeks.

At one point, as he engaged in a frenzied battle with the demons of his twilight state, Jake threw himself off the bed and reopened the cut on his forehead. It took

six burly male servants to restrain him while Hallie tended to the wound. It was then that Seth and Hallie reluctantly agreed that the only way to keep Jake from doing himself further harm was to tie him to the bed.

Jake panicked at being bound, reacting like a man terrified of something more awful than death itself. With his body twisting and turning in furious protest, he struggled to free himself from his bindings. When he at last collapsed against the mattress, fighting for breath, his trembling was so intense that the whole bed shook.

Tied spread-eagled to the bed, naked save for the towel between his legs, Jake lay in utter vulnerability. Hallie tried to soothe him by gently stroking his cheek and chest, but he cringed from her hand, moaning in a way that broke her heart. His reaction was that of a man who had been badly treated in the past and expected more such abuse. And she could only sit by his bed, bleeding inside for the torment he was suffering.

It was when she had to tend to his personal needs that his violence escalated to a frightening peak. Screaming hoarsely, Jake wrenched against his bindings so forcefully that dark welts rose on his wrists. His back arched wildly as he tried to escape, and tears rolled from beneath the bandages swathing his eyes.

“It's all right, darling,” Hallie cried, appalled by his obvious terror. She stroked his hip in an attempt to calm him, but her caress seemed only to madden him further.

Seth, who had been snatching a few moments of rest, was awakened by Jake's cries and rushed to his friend's side. Understanding dawned as he accurately sized up the situation.

“I think he's damaged inside,” Hallie exclaimed, glancing up at the tousled man standing by her side. “I was changing the cloth between his legs, and he acted as if I was hurting him.”

Seth shifted his gaze from his friend's flailing form to Hallie's troubled face. “In his mind, he probably thinks he's being hurt.”

“I don't understand.”

“Sweetheart …” Seth paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to proceed. Jake was a proud man, and he wasn't sure if his friend would want him to tell Hallie how he had suffered at the army surgeons' hands.

He stared down at the man writhing on the bed. Yet how else was he to explain Jake's reaction?

Seth let out a long sigh. “I don't know what Jake has told you about his leg, if anything, but—”

“He told me how you refused to let the doctors amputate it,” she interjected quietly. “That was very brave of you.”

Seth smiled bitterly at her praise. “There were times when I wondered if I had been foolish in insisting that they try to save the leg. The wound festered … horribly so. In my worst nightmare, I never could have imagined a man living in such a condition.”

Uncomfortably he shifted his gaze from Hallie's to stare down at the toes of his boots. “I can only imagine how terrifying the ordeal must have been for Jake. And the pain he suffered …”

His voice caught as he remembered his friend's agony. “Because I refused to let them take the leg, he was subjected to a series of brutal operations and treatments. They wouldn't give him any chloroform, since he almost died the first time they used it, so they tied him down and did the procedures without it. There were a couple of times when they didn't have any morphine to give him to take the edge off his torment. A lesser man would have died from the shock.”

Hallie stared down at where Jake lay muttering and jerking about on the bed. “My poor love,” she crooned, wanting to cry for what he'd suffered. “No wonder he thinks that doctors are butchers and charlatans.”

“Can't say as I blame him,” Seth replied with a grimace. “Do you know what he said was the worst part?”

Hallie shook her head mutely.

Seth reached down and touched the rope that bound Jake's right wrist to the headboard. “Being tied. It frightened him to be lying there helpless and at their mercy.”

“He must have been terribly weak. Surely they could have held him instead?”

“They did try, but the pain from their handiwork maddened him to uncontrollable violence.” Seth let his hand drop from the rope. “Even as weak as he was from being wounded, Jake was still too strong to be restrained by the orderlies.”

It was with new understanding that Hallie turned back to the man she loved. As she finished cleansing him, she took care to touch his leg as little as possible. And though he cried out, shrinking convulsively from the probing of the damp towel, he eventually calmed to the familiar sound of her voice.

The remaining afternoon hours melted away, and as dusk deepened into night, Jake fell into a deathlike stupor. By midnight, his breathing was little more than a harsh, strangled wheeze, and his lips had taken on a bluish tinge that Hallie recognized all too well. Jake was suffocating.

Hallie's heart gave a painful thud. If she didn't do something to help him breathe, he would die. With dread coiling in her stomach, she went to awaken Seth, who was dozing on a pallet near Jake's bed.

“Seth.” She gave him a frantic shake.

His years in the army had made Seth a light sleeper, and almost immediately he was awake. Pushing his tangled mane of hair out of his eyes, he stared into Hallie's face. The urgency of her expression made his gut twist with fear. “Jake? He isn't—”

“No!” Hallie interjected, not wanting to hear him say the ominous word. She could feel death's presence hovering near, and superstitiously she thought that to say the word would bring the dark creature swooping down to take Jake.

Giving her head a sharp shake, she repeated, “No. But he will be if we don't help him. I-I need—” Then her voice faltered.

“Hallie?” Seth reached up and grasped her arm. “What do you need? Just say it, and I'll make sure you have it.”

She swallowed hard. “I have to c-cut into his throat … to help him b-breathe. I need you to assist me.”

Seth turned the color of putty at her proposal. “Is there no other way?” He'd seen the bloody procedure done during the war, and he was all too aware of the possible consequences.

“I wish there was.”

Without comment, Seth rose from the cot and followed Hallie to Jake's bed. One look at his friend told him that Hallie was right: there was no other choice.

Watching as Hallie quickly laid out her surgical instruments, he asked, “Do you have everything you need?”

“You're going to have to tell me where you found this case sometime.” Hallie pulled out a peculiar-looking contraption with long rubber tubes, and after rummaging about for a moment, she produced a strangely shaped silver tube. With a satisfied smile she added, “And to answer your question, yes, I've got everything I need. The kit is amazingly complete.”

“Good. Then I guess Dr. Barnes wasn't lying.”

Hallie almost dropped her retractors. “Dr.
Barnes
?”

Seth chuckled at Hallie's reaction. “The venerable Dr. Barnes is as inept at cards as he is at medicine, and I simply decided to call due his gambling debt. The man assured me that this is the finest case in all of San Francisco.”

Hallie paused in her preparations to give his arm a fond squeeze. “You're a wonderful man, Seth. And I promise to find some way to repay you for the case.”

“You've already more than repaid me with everything you've done for Jake.”

“Jake's lucky to have a friend like you.”

“And even more lucky to be loved by a woman like you.” He winked roguishly. “Why, if Jake wasn't my best friend, I'd charm you right away from him.”

“And if I wasn't so in love with him, I'd probably be swooning at your feet.” Hallie winked back, and then turned her attention to measuring out a liberal portion of morphine into a syringe. She knew how Jake would object to being given the drug if he were rational; yet in this too she had no choice. She needed to keep him calm during the surgery and since he was beyond reason, she could think of no other way.

“Forgive me, my love,” she murmured under her breath as she gave him the injection.

Jake fought against Seth's hold at the initial pain of the needle, but he soon began to relax as the drug took its effect. When he lay completely sedated, Hallie began her grisly task.

She could feel Seth's eyes on her face as she shaved Jake's throat clean of its blue-black stubble. She knew he was mutely pleading for reassurance, but she had none to give.

“You'll need to hold his head still while I work,” she said, finally breaking her silence. And when all was ready, Hallie picked up her scalpel.

With trembling hands, she let the blade hover over the tender skin at the base of Jake's throat. He looked so helpless lying there, awaiting what might well prove to be the fatal cut. Hallie hesitated for a moment and then lowered the knife.

“I can't,” she choked out. “I'm afraid.”

Seth released Jake's head and pulled Hallie into his embrace. Stroking her heaving back, he murmured, “Of course you can do it. I have faith in you. And so does Jake. Why, you have no idea how many hours he's spent bragging about your wondrous medical skills. Bored every friend he has with the topic.”

“He didn't!”

“Cross my heart,” Seth vowed solemnly. “He even went so far as to say that he would trust you with his life. We all know what a glowing recommendation that is, coming from Jake, considering his low opinion of the medical profession.”

“Did he really say that?” Hallie sniffled and met Seth's gaze, her eyes flaring with gratitude at his vote of confidence.

“I already said honest Injun, didn't I?” He rummaged in his pocket and produced a handkerchief. Typically Seth, it was a vivid shade of orange. “He claims that there's nothing you can't do, as far as doctoring goes. You wouldn't want to make him into a liar, would you?”

After Hallie had wiped her eyes and blown her nose, he picked up the scalpel and slipped it into her hand. “For Jake's sake, prove him right.”

Hallie stared at the knife in her hand and then back up into Seth's face. He winked at her. Jake trusted her. That in itself was enough to give her much-needed courage.

And this time when she pressed the blade to Jake's throat, her hand was steady. Working quickly yet cautiously, she made the necessary incisions. Jake seemed oblivious to the pain, and for that she was eternally grateful. Aside from a violent bout of coughing when she inserted the curved silver tube through the incision and down his trachea, he remained senseless.

After securing the tube in his throat, she began the painstaking job of suctioning out his airways. It was a repulsive task, one that made Seth turn away retching, but Hallie was beyond all disgust in her quest to save Jake's life.

“There,” she whispered, giving the tube in his neck a final swabbing. “He'll be all right for a little while, but we'll have to watch him carefully. He'll need to be suctioned at regular intervals, and we have to make sure he doesn't disturb the tube.”

Seth grimaced at the odd hand pump. “For how long?”

“If all goes well, not for more than a day or so. By then, the swelling in his air passages should be down and the secretions about gone. I can remove the tube then.” She saw Seth shudder with aversion as he glanced at the pump again.

She knew what it cost him when he offered, “If you'll show me how it's done, I'll help with the pumping.”

The man's obvious devotion to his friend deeply touched Hallie. Giving his hand a grateful squeeze, she whispered, “As I've said before, Jake's lucky to have a friend like you.”

Seth returned her squeeze. “I'm the lucky one. I'd still be a gutter rat if it wasn't for Jake. That is, if I wasn't dead from drink and hard living.”

Hallie laughed at that. Gutter rat? Seth Tyler? Why, there wasn't a more courtly or elegantly mannered man in all of San Francisco. Expect for Jake, of course. And she mentioned as much.

“You should have seen me ten years ago.” He chuckled. “I didn't have two cents to rub together, and I smelled so bad that the ladies would cross the street when they saw me coming.”

“Now I know you're teasing me!” But when Hallie glanced up at his face, she saw that his expression was wholly serious. Leaning forward to soothe Jake's cracked lips with a piece of ice, she asked, “How did you meet Jake?”