BRIAN (The Callahans Book 1) (98 page)

              “We certainly do.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

              “I have some bad news,” she said to get his attention, but he seemed too elated for bad news to register.

              “I have good news, so I’ll go first,” he quickly interrupted her. “I’ve scheduled you for surgery first thing tomorrow morning.”

              “What?”

              “I found you an eye.”

              She didn’t know how to break it to him that his father had drugged him all those years ago and was the person behind her terrorizing attack. Taylor immediately announced how thrilled he was that, in his words, by this time tomorrow she would be able to see. Every time she tried to get a word in on the subject of Porter and his dark plans to control just about everyone around him, Taylor would once again bubble over with glee that he had found her a donor—“a match!” he kept saying, as though it were a miracle.

              It was. She didn’t deny it, but similar to that morning, Rose was boiling over with conflict.

              By the time they got back to the Escala after leaving East Bellevue and eating a five-course meal at a five-star restaurant on the west side of Seattle, Rose had given up on telling Taylor about Porter and all she’d learned with Carter and Layla earlier that day. She would take the night, get good rest, go through her surgery tomorrow, and then when she was well and ready, she would explain to Taylor that his father was a very bad man.

              Rose knew she shouldn’t hold off on telling him the truth, but the fact of the matter was that Taylor was so excited about her surgery that the feeling had become contagious. She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she couldn’t help it. What if the surgery worked? What if she regained her sight? What if she really would be able to “see” by this time tomorrow?

              As Taylor held the suite door open for her and led her inside, he said, “I’m determined to find you a second eye, but Dr. Fitzpatrick explained that it’s actually a blessing I only secured one. This way, you can heal, recover, and then perhaps in a month have another surgery for the other eye.”

              “Dare I ask how much it cost you?” she teased, as she sat on the bed now that they’d made their way into the bedroom.

              “Don’t you dare,” he teased back then helped her pull her shoes off.

              “We should go to bed so you can rest up, get a good night’s sleep,” he said, sitting beside her and wrestling his own shoes off.

              “Won’t I be asleep on the operating table?” she asked, implying she had other ideas for how they might spend the rest of their evening.

              “That’s hardly the same.”

              As she laid back, her head meeting the pillows, she asked, “So is it the left eye or the right one?”

              “The right one,” he said after some time.

              “Will you be in the room with me?”

              He drew in a breath, giving her the impression that he was carefully choosing his words. “For the sake of keeping the room as sterile as possible, no, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

              Rose furrowed her brow at that. It struck her as a strange reason, but she had to admit she knew nothing about surgery procedures. If Taylor thought being in the room would be a bad idea, then it was a bad idea. Still, she would’ve liked to hear he would be there with her. For as excited as she was, she was also scared.

              “I have nothing to lose,” she said out loud, though to herself.

              “Hm?”

              “If the surgery doesn’t go well,” she explained, drawing in a deep breath, “then I won’t be worse off. I’ll come out the same. I have nothing to lose.”

              “Don’t be nervous, Rose,” he said, rolling over onto his elbow so he could gaze down at her and run his hand across her stomach. “It’s going to go well.”

              “You don’t know that,” she countered. “Not for sure. I’m just trying to manage my expectations.”

              “How can you be so optimistically unrealistic when it comes to your activism work, and so completely negative when it comes to your own health?”

              “I don’t know,” she said. But after a moment, she went on to say, “No, I do know. Both of my parents died.”

              “I’m sorry to hear that.”

              There was silence before she continued to speak. “My mom was in a bad car accident when I was barely twelve. And when she was in the hospital I hoped so hard she would pull through. And she didn’t. Then when I was in college, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. And again, I hoped and hoped, and I hung onto every silver lining I could. When he died, I realized that hoping was worse than not hoping. If you don’t get your hopes up, you don’t have as far to fall when you’re let down.”

              Taylor brushed her cheek.

              “Your eyes aren’t a matter of life and death,” he reminded her.

              “For me, seeing
is
life and death. It’s either life as I used to know it, or the death of who I used to be.”

              “You’re not dead now,” he pointed out.

              “But I’m not functioning.”

              “You are. Just in a different way.”

              “In a different way I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to.”

              “You never shut down a pipeline when you had your vision. You never got a billion-dollar corporation to spend millions on relocating their pipeline. You did all that after you lost your sight. I wouldn’t be so quick to discredit how you’re functioning.”

              “I did that, because you’re a pushover.”

              “Oh, is that right,” he said with a smile, as he pinched her hip.

              “All right, I see your point. Now consider mine. If I had been blind and crossed the lounge in the hotel that night, if you had seen a white cane and eye patches approaching, would you have taken me upstairs?”

              “Let’s not forget your forward, flirtatious personality,” he added.

              “Fine, let’s not forget it. Factor it in. Would you have taken me upstairs?” 

              She sensed the smile falling from his face.

              Finally, he said, “I’m really not sure.”

              Nodding, she took a moment to absorb the truth of his statement.

              “Then I’m really not sure getting you to move the pipeline can be at all credited to my loss of eyesight.”

              Rather than responding, Taylor gently brushed his lips against hers then kissed her.

              As they made love that night before falling asleep, Rose was consumed with hopes and fears. If she truly did regain the ability to see tomorrow, and Porter found out, what would he do about it? And would Taylor be able to stop him from executing his dark plan? Would anyone?

              The next day, Rose woke like a lark at the crack of dawn and showered as if she could scrub the worry from her mind. She dressed with minimal help from Taylor, and when they reached the curb, he held the passenger’s side door of his Lexus open for her.

              As he drove across town to Seattle Mercy, she rattled off a million questions. Who was the donor? Why did they think they could live without an eye? Could she thank the person afterwards? How could she ever repay them? Was it a man or a woman? How good was their eyesight?

              Taylor had been evasive. At times, he was simply guessing, and other times he stated his lawyer had used a contract with several confidentiality clauses, and he wasn’t at liberty to discuss it.

              By the time they arrived at the hospital, Rose had received almost no answers, and the ones she had were speculative. She knew no more about the mysterious donor than she had that morning.

              As soon as Taylor announced their arrival at the desk on the third floor outside of Dr. Fitzpatrick’s office, he received a phone call on his cell that he said he couldn’t ignore.

              “I’ll kiss you good-bye now,” he added.             

              “What? I thought you would stay with me at least while they sedate me? I want you to be with me as I go under.”

              “I’m sorry, Rose, I really can’t.”

              “What is it? Is it the pipeline?” she asked, growing frantic.

              “There’s nothing to worry about. Try to stay calm. Elevating your heart rate isn’t good before surgery.”

              “But I need a reason for why you can’t be there with me. Is it your father? Did he do something?”

              “No, no, everything’s fine, but I have to go now.”

              Confused as she was, she released him. He kissed her mouth then rushed off through the entrance, leaving her to ponder what could possibly be going on with him.

              Before she could fret further, Dr. Fitzpatrick entered the anteroom.

              “Rose, fantastic, I’m so glad you’re here. Let me walk you down to surgery.”

              He offered her his arm, and when she grasped it, he led her out of the anteroom and down the hall towards the elevators.

              “All of our surgery rooms are on the first floor. We’ll get you changed and on the table. The anesthesiologist is here.”

              “How long will the surgery take?”

              “It’s a complicated procedure, and it could take anywhere from three to five hours.”

              “Oh my God.”

              “Well, I’m going to be attaching each nerve, one by one, and before I move on from one nerve to the next, I have to see that your body is accepting it.”

              “And after I wake up, how long will it be before we know I can see?”

              “Rose, if your body rejects the eye on the table, and there is always a chance it will, then we’ll tell you as soon as you wake up.”

              “But if my body accepts it?”

              “In that case, we’d take the bandages off in less than a day and you would know.”

              She was both thrilled and terrified, as Dr. Fitzpatrick passed her off to one of the nurses who was there to help her change into a surgical gown and tuck her hair under a cap.

              Soon the nurse was guiding her into the operating room where a long table was set in the middle of the area. Rose hopped up then lay back, feeling the bright lights overhead.

              It felt like an eternity before Dr. Fitzpatrick entered the operating room with another doctor whose face was concealed with a surgical mask.

              “Rose, this is the anesthesiologist, Dr. Mendel.”

              “Hi, Rose,” said the doctor, who was fully focused on readying his equipment. She could hear him shifting and moving his instruments. When he placed a plastic dome over her mouth and nose, he told her to start counting backwards from thirty.

              “So this is it?” she asked. “I’m going under?”

              She wasn’t sure why she had expected some kind of reassuring pep talk, but the doctors weren’t planning on giving her one.

              “Yes,” said Dr. Fitzpatrick. “Go ahead and start counting.”

              She did, and she was unconscious before she reached twenty.

              When Rose woke, gradually regaining consciousness, she could see nothing. Groggily, she lifted her hand to her eyes, though her arm felt heavy as cement. Touching gently, she felt a thick band of gauze wrapping her head and breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she couldn’t “see.”The gauze was preventing her from seeing. Vaguely, she remembered Dr. Fitzpatrick had told her it could take the majority of the day for her eye to heal, but by nightfall she would be able to take the bandage off and tell whether or not the surgery had been a success.

              Her hospital room felt warm, and for a moment she listened to the whir of the vent pump crisp air into her room. It was quiet, though she heard voices murmuring far beyond her door, perhaps nurses talking, doctors briefing the families of patients on their conditions, patients and loved ones reuniting after surgery, which made her wonder. Where was Taylor?

              Feeling along the armrest of her hospital bed, she found a few buttons on the console. The elongate one had to be for ascending and lowering her hospital bed, so she pressed it and slowly elevated into a seated position. Then she felt for the nurse call button. It was the round one, and when she pressed it, the door at the far end of the room clicked open and a nurse said, “You’re awake.”

              “Taylor Montgomery?” she asked, wasting no time to find out if he was out there in the waiting room or perhaps speaking with her doctor. “Is he here?”

              The nurse stammered some inarticulate nonsense then stated, “I can see if we can get him in here.” Then she quickly left the room.

              See if they could get him in here? What a strange way of putting it, but Rose tried not to dwell. Instead, she hoped he had come back. His suite at the Escala was fully equipped for her to recover, and the sooner she could get out of here, the better.

              A long moment passed before the nurse returned, and Rose heard Taylor say, “Hey, beautiful. How do you feel?”

              She smiled, relieved to hear his voice, and said, “I’m okay. I feel a little groggy.”

              “That’s the anesthetic wearing off, I would guess,” he said as he neared her bed. As he took her hand, he added, “You probably want to get out of here, don’t you?”

              “You read my mind.”

              “I’ve already arranged it. Nurse? Could you get me a wheelchair?”

              She padded off, and Taylor sat on the edge of her bed.

              “You look good,” he said, brushing her hair, not that it was straying. The bandage around her head kept it tucked.

              “You can’t see my eyes,” she pointed out. “But thanks.”

              “Does your eye feel weird? Or fine?”

              “Um…” She had to think about it. “I can’t tell.” After a moment, she asked, “Where were you rushing off to?”

              “Oh, that was nothing.”

              It hadn’t seemed like nothing.

              “Well, what were you doing?”

              “Rose,” he said, stopping her. “You need to rest and not get worked up.”

              “It was just a question. I’m not getting worked up.”

              He was evading the question, which made her think it wasn’t simply a question he was avoiding, but an issue. Had Porter said or done something to pull him away? Rose felt a stab of sudden regret that she should’ve told him about what Porter had done to Carter and Layla, the same offense he had committed against Taylor. She felt the urge to tell him here and now, but if he didn’t want her getting worked up, then she didn’t know how she would mention it. She decided to get home and get settled, and then when he seemed more receptive, she would explain all that she’d learned about his father.

              The nurse returned with a wheelchair, and Taylor helped Rose out of her bed, thanking the nurse in a tone that implied he could take it from here.

              First he assisted Rose in getting her jeans on, her bra and then her sweater. After easing her into the chair, he rolled her out of the room and down the hall in a manner that so reminded her of when she had left the Bellevue hospital after losing her eyesight.

              “Did you bring your SUV?” she asked.

              “Not this time,” he said as they crossed through the exit into the hot, early evening sunset. “I didn’t feel like driving, so the limo will take us home.”

              Rose heard the driver walk towards the back door and pop it open, and as Taylor guided Rose into the limousine, he said, “Dr. Fitzpatrick told me your surgery went very well. He said the nerves connected easily, and your new eye was responding to mild stimulation when he conducted a few simple tests.”

              “He was able to run tests with me unconscious?”

              “Yes, apparently,” he said. “It’s all very promising.”

              As Taylor drew her near and kissed her cheek, the limousine pulling away from the curb and heading north towards the Escala, Rose teased, “What did I tell you about getting my hopes up?”

              “I’ll never stop getting your hopes up,” he said. “Oh, and Greer made you a few new eye patches, single patches instead of double ones now that you’ll have sight in one eye.”

              “Again with the getting my hopes up!”

              He pressed his lips to hers to shut her up, and they settled into a comfortable embrace the rest of the drive home.

              When they reached the Escala, the driver rolled Rose’s wheelchair to the back door after lifting it out of the trunk. Taylor helped her sit and then thanked his driver and rolled Rose through the lobby and into the elevator.

              He keyed into his suite as soon as they reached the door on the fiftieth floor, but when he rolled her inside, she stood from the chair since she knew his apartment as intimately as she knew him.

              “Are you hungry?” he asked. “Tired?”

              “Both, I think.”

              Taylor suggested she get in bed and he would bring her a sandwich, which sounded wonderful, so she held his arm and they went into the bedroom. After she stripped away her jeans and traded her sweater and bra for one of his oversized tee shirts, she climbed into bed and listened to Taylor pad through the suite and make a sandwich in the kitchen.

              As she waited for him to return, she realized she felt more in the mood for his body than a sandwich, but exhaustion was also taking hold.

              Soon she felt him sitting on the bed beside her after peeling the covers back and slipping in. When he set her sandwich plate on her lap, she wondered if she might fall asleep before she could lift it to her mouth, but she managed a few bites, as Taylor explained the waiting period which would have to lapse before they could take her bandages off.

              Whether it was the anesthetic still in her system or perhaps painkillers the nurse had given her, she felt like she was becoming fatigued and delirious. She could barely follow his words. Then, without even realizing what she was doing, she began mumbling.              

              “Porter drugged them....”

              “What?” he said quickly, though his alarm didn’t register.

              “Carter and Layla. He’s manipulating them. He blackmailed them. He drugged them just like he drugged you.”

              “Rose. Rose?”

              It wasn’t until she felt him grab her that she realized she had been falling sideways, but he righted her.

              “I think you need to sleep.”

              “It was him,” she mumbled, dozing off in his arms. “He tried to kill me. It was him.”

              Rose fell into a deep sleep. Taylor shifted her down into the bed so that they were both lying on their backs; Rose curled into the crook of his shoulder, and his arms wrapped around her.

              Hours passed and when Rose woke, she felt energetic and well rested, as if she had slept for ten hours. Had she? She sensed the room was dark, though the bandages around her eyes prevented her from truly knowing one way or the other if it was still nighttime.

              When she realized enough hours might have passed for her to unwrap her head and discover whether or not she could see, she bolted upright and felt for Taylor in the bed. He was breathing heavily, and she almost felt bad about waking him, but she was too excited and knew he would be, too, as soon as he woke up.

              Gently, she reached out, intending to find his shoulder, but he must have slid farther down the bed, because she felt his cheek with her fingers. Angling her hand against the side of his head to brush her fingers through his hair, she was startled to feel gauze.

              “What?” she heard herself say, even though she hadn’t meant to speak out loud.

              Gently, she felt his face with both hands. Gauze was wrapping his eyes, and instantly she knew why. At the same time, she couldn’t believe it.

              “Rose,” he said groggily, waking up and catching her hands with his.

              “Taylor, you didn’t,” she whispered, shocked.

              He sat up so he could be eye level with her.

              “Taylor, tell me you didn’t,” she demanded, confused as to how this was supposed to make her feel. No one should sacrifice so greatly for her, yet she was grateful he had.

              “Finding a donor was proving impossible,” he explained. “I’m a lot of things, but patient isn’t one of them.”

              “So you...?”

              “I insisted Dr. Fitzpatrick test me to see if I was a match, and when I learned I was, the decision was easy.”

              “Easy? How could it be easy?”

              “It just was.”

              He drew in a deep breath then sighed. “You can’t be upset with me for this.”

              “I don’t know how I feel.”             

              “You will,” he countered. “Here.”

              He fell silent and she sensed him taking the bandage off his head. When he shifted, she heard him pull something over his head, and he mentioned, “Greer made me one, too.”

              He flipped the nightstand lamp on, and as soon as he did, she saw amber light through the gauze over her right eye.

              He helped her with her bandage, unwrapping the gauze until it fell to the bed, but her eyes were pinched shut.

              “Don’t be scared,” he whispered.

              Taylor slipped an eye patch over her left eye, making sure the elastic wrapped her head at the right angle, and then brushed the back of his hand down her cheek.

              “Look at me,” he said softly. “Open your eye.”

              She was terrified, but eventually found the nerve to lift her eyelid open, and when she did, she saw Taylor gazing at her.

              Immediately, she burst out in exhilarated laughter and cupped her hands around his face, drinking in the sight of him. She thought she would never see his face again, and the fact that she now could made her wonder if this was a dream.

              “I can see?” she asked, laughing and crying and hoping she wouldn’t wake up.

              “You tell me,” he said, smiling, his good eye glistening with a tear that was threatening to spill down his cheek.

              “We look like pirates,” she said, launching into contagious laughter. She kissed him. “God, I can’t believe you did this. This is why you rushed off before my surgery?”

              “Yes.”

              Overcome with emotion, Rose kissed him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. They fell to the bed, Taylor shifting over her, and hungrily pulling her panties down, as she wriggled, helping him get them off as quickly as possible.

              He pushed his boxer-briefs down next, and when he returned his gaze to her, she stared at him, unwilling to close her eye or even blink. Seeing him was too good. She didn’t want to miss him for even a second.

              Taylor pulled the tee shirt up and over her head then threw it off the side of the bed, In the next instant, she felt him thrust into her hard and fast, filling her completely.

              She moaned and her breathing turned into a hot flutter, as her body gradually expanded to accommodate his size. All the while they gazed into each other’s eyes, both smiling, and Taylor began thrusting with a slow, sensual rhythm.

              “I love you,” he whispered, quickening his pace again as she wrapped her legs around him, savoring the size of him sliding in and out.

              “I love you, too.”

              Soon she felt a surge of heat rushing through her, and she moaned, knowing he was bringing her to the peak.

              He groaned in response and began grinding into her, which caused a powerful clench deep inside her.

              “Oh, God, I’m coming,” she moaned then kissed him to enhance her pleasure. His smooth lips against hers and his warm tongue probing her mouth in contrast to the way he felt inside was enough to bring her over the edge, and suddenly Rose was riding the swell of pleasure, climaxing and crying out in ecstasy.