Color Blind (21 page)

Chapter
27

Over

The hospital waiting room smells sterile
and sick at the same time. I’ve never been to a hospital; I’ve never had a
reason to come and sit and wait.

The waiting is almost killing me.

My eyes are glued to the wall in front of
me. I’ve been staring at the same picture for hours. A still portrait of a
family playing on the beach. Why they would hang such a happy print in a
hospital waiting room is beyond me. I want to tear it down and throw it across
the room, stomping on it until it shatters into a million sad little pieces.

“Sweetie,” Dara says from her chair next
to mine. “You gotta eat something.”

I shake my head. I’m still numb, but I
know this isn’t the first time she’s said this tome. “I’ll eat when Cooper can
eat with me.”

She shakes her head, looking worriedly at
Brandon.

“Cam,” he says gently. “I’m going to the
cafeteria to grab some food. I’m going to bring some back, and Luka will force
feed you if he has to. You will eat.”

He gets up and leaves, and I barely heard
what it was he said to me.

Then I’m looking into Luka’s beautiful
face as he kneels down in front of me.

“I want to take you home,” he pleads.

I stare at him like he’s lost his mind,
because he surely must be joking. “If you touch me, I’ll scream bloody murder.”

I lean back in my seat and wait.

And wait some more.

Down the hall, I see Cooper’s Aunt Stacey
pacing the tiled floor. She hasn’t been sitting in the waiting room with us,
because I don’t think she’s physically able to sit. She just keeps walking the
floor.

Over and over again.

I rise out of my seat and approach her.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, unable to meet
her eyes.

She stops pacing and grabs my shoulders.

“Camryn,” she says firmly. “Cooper
wouldn’t want you to fall apart on him now. You have absolutely nothing to be
sorry about. If I had any idea what my sister—“

She breaks off as a sob escapes her
throat. She takes a deep breath and starts again. “Don’t apologize. Not to me.
You have saved my nephew’s life just by being in it, and I am so grateful that
he loves you.”

She goes back to pacing, and I slump
against the wall as I wait some more.

Several hours later, I’m finally done
waiting.

A doctor in green scrubs walks down the hall.
It takes him hours to reach us, or at least it seems that way.

“I understand that Cooper Goode’s mother
is unable to be here, and that he lives with you,” the doctor said to Aunt
Stacey.

“That’s right,” she says. Her words are
faint, and I can see the question in her eyes that she’s too afraid to voice
aloud.

“Cooper survived the surgery,” the doctor
says.

All of the breath I’m holding inside my
lungs
whooshes
out in a giant
exhalation. “He’s going to be okay?”

The doctor glances at me. He smiles. “Girlfriend?”

I nod.

“He’s going to be okay,” he says. “The
bullets were removed without too much damage to his internal system. He will be
sore and will have to stay a few days for observation, but overall he is beyond
lucky. I’d say there’s a greater purpose for this young man.”

The doctor turns and walks away. Stacey
grabs me and squeezes me In a fierce hug.

We hug and hug, and then we wait some
more.

Cooper

As I struggle back to reality through a
white haze of nothingness, I follow the sound of Cam’s voice.

I open my eyes to see her sitting next to
me. I quickly close them against the harsh lighting overhead. I open them again
when I hear her sharp intake of breath and her strangled exclamation.

“Cooper?” she barely gets the word out.

She shouldn’t sound like that. I want her
happy. So I open my eyes again, trying hard to focus on her face.

She sighs heavily, seemingly relieved.

“Hey,” she says. Her whole face breaks
into her usual sunny smile, and I don’t care about anything but the fact that I
have made her smile like that again.

Then my brain clears a little more, and I
look around wondering where I am. I tried to sit up, and that is a very bad
idea.

“
Motherf
—“
I choke out.

“Don’t do that!” Cam says quickly. She
puts her hand on my chest, gently. “Don’t try to sit up. You’ve been shot.”

She bends low and whispers in my ear. “Seashell.”

Memories come roaring back when she says
“shot.”

I groan, remembering.

“Yeah,” I say shakily. “I feel like it.
How bad is it?”

“I’ve been terrified. You’ve been
unconscious for days. When they brought you here, they had to do emergency
surgery to remove the bullet. It was lodged in your chest cavity. You’ve got
broken ribs from the impact, but they were able to remove the bullet. You lost
a lot of blood. I’m sure your doctor can explain everything better.”

“You did a pretty good job,” I say,
smiling up at her. “Have you been here the whole time?”

“I went home to shower a few times,” she says.
“What do you remember?”

“Everything,” I say. “Are you…okay?”

“Yes,” she answers immediately. “And so
is Dara. Thanks to you.”

I relax a little then, because as long as
she is alright, everything else is secondary.

“Did they get my dad?” I ask.

She hesitates. “We can talk about this
later. You should rest now.”

“Cam,” I say, some of the pleading I feel
leaking into my voice. “I need to know. Did they get him?”

“Yes,” she answers. “They got him. He’s
in jail.”

“What about my mom?”

“They’re not pressing charges against her.
Something about not having evidence against her. But they took Lilly’s dad to
jail along with all the men your father had with him as guards.”

I sigh and relax into the pillows.
“Good.”

“Cooper--” she begins.

“I know,” I tell her. “You need
explanations. A lot of them.”

The fervent shake of her head surprises
me. “No, that’s not what I was going to say. The police seem to have pieced
everything together. There’s a guy in your dad’s crew that was willing to talk
as long as they promised him immunity. He sang like a canary. He gave them
enough to put your dad away for a long time.”

“But our case would be even more solid with
your testimony,” a woman says as she enters my hospital room. A man in a suit
accompanies, and it’s obvious that they’re detectives.

“Can we have a moment of your time, Mr.
Goode?” The woman looks pointedly at Cam, who starts to get up out of her
chair.

I reach out and grab her arm, even though
it feels like it nearly kills me to do it.

“Don’t,” I tell her. “Stay with me.
Please.”

She sits back down and looks defiantly at
the detectives.

The woman nods. “Okay, she can stay.”

They say that they’re federal agents, and
proceed to tell me about the case they have been building against my father for
years, dating back to when he resurfaced out of hiding.

“If you have all that, why do you need
me?” I ask.

“Because your testimony about how he
wanted you to take over the business for him would just seal the deal.”

I nod thoughtfully. “What about my mom?”

“She’s not talking,” the detective spits.
“And we can’t make her, because she and your dad got married last month.”

 
I close my eyes briefly. No wonder my mom
has been putting off leaving Maryland and joining me here in Virginia. So much is
clicking into place in my brain about her, about the life we’ve had.

I look straight at the detectives. “I’ll
testify.”

“Are you sure, Cooper?” asks Cam
tentatively. “This is a big deal. Do you want to take some time to think about
it?”

“He wanted to hurt you,” I tell her
fiercely. “He goes to prison for life. Period.”

The woman agent looks at us with one
eyebrow cocked. I see a question at the tip of her lips, but she doesn’t ask
it.

After getting some more information from
me, the agents tell me they’ll be in touch and leave.

I stare at Camryn, a little awestruck. Her
eyes hold my gaze, steady and unblinking.

“You saved me,” she says quietly.

“Not soon enough,” I reply. I shake my
head, still angry with myself. “You should never have been in danger in the
first place.”

She assesses herself, and then glances back
at me. “I’m here, aren’t I? I don’t think I would be if you hadn’t…”

She trails off, biting her bottom lip.

I don’t want to think about what would
have happened to her and Dara. I don’t know my father at all, but from the
short amount of time I spent with him, I know he is ruthless. He wanted me
working with him at any cost, and he knew that Cam was standing in the way of
that.

Because if I didn’t have her, I don’t
know where I’d be.

I take her hand in mine and look into the
liquid brown eyes that I love so much. “I told you that I was going to try hard
to be good enough for you. I haven’t done that yet, but I’m chipping away at it
every day. I would save your life a million times over if I had to, without
even thinking about it. I love you, Camryn, and I want to keep you. Forever.”

“And always?” she asks, bending down to
brush her lips against mine.

“And always.”

Epilogue

I lean back on the iron bench, snapping my
textbook shut and surveying the scenic campus around me. The buildings are
sprawling, each one statuesque and regal. I still can’t believe this is my view
every day. The beach is my home and my safe place. It’s where I grew up. But
this city is breathtaking, and I have found a small piece of home here, too.

I look down at my phone to check the time.

When I look up again, he is striding
toward me at an easy gait; his messenger bag is slung over one shoulder and his
leather jacket reflects the bright fall sunlight.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he greets me and bends
to give me a kiss.

“Hey,” I smile up at him.

He sits down next to me and puts one strong
arm around my shoulder. “Do you want to get a coffee before your next class?”

“Yes,” I answer immediately. Having
completed three early morning classes at NYU already today means I need a coffee
break if I am going to be able to get through my theater audition this
afternoon.

Cooper looks around at the city view from
our hilltop and sighs. “Aren’t you glad we decided to come to New York instead
of moving to L.A.?”

“Well, the fact that we were both
accepted to NYU helped,” I giggle. “But I do love it here.”

I playfully tickle his ribs. “Do you know
how surprised everyone was when you got accepted here? I don’t think Dara and
Brandon and Luka knew you even did school work.”

He laughs, moving my hands away from his
ticklish spot. “I like to live on the edge. If I told everyone all my secrets,
I’d lose the element of surprise. And my street cred.”

It’s true, what he’d said about the move
to NYC. The city agrees with me, and I can audition for as many musicals as I
want. Broadway is where my heart has always lived anyway. I miss Dara like
crazy, but the train ride to the University of Virginia isn’t too long, and it’s
a trip we are both willing to make.

And now, not only does my heart belong to
Broadway, it belongs to Cooper as well. And our future together looks as bright
as the neon lights of Manhattan.

About
the Author

I’m a mom before I’m anything else. When
I finally felt brave enough to quit working and stay at home with my oldest
daughter, the idea of becoming an author was born. So now I’m a mom, a wife,
AND an author. And I love being all of those things. I live in South Carolina
now with my family, but I’m a Southeastern Virginia girl at heart. I love
books, steak, and television, and I hate working out. My two kids are
Carrington, age 3, and Raleigh, eleven months. We also have a four-legged
family member of the doggie variety, whose name is

Landis.

Please
visit my website for future releases:
www.dianagardin.com

Find
me on Twitter: @
Dianalynngardin