Lyon on a Leash (25 page)

He covered his mouth and placed his hand on his stomach while stumbling to a chair. Head down, he beat back the debilitating fear that clawed at his guts. She was tough. She’d pull through this. His lady was a fighter. Those words offered a measure of comfort, but not knowing the nature of her injuries kept fear and desolation hovering in the background. His phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Marcus? Are you at the hospital?” Marguerite asked in a tentative voice.

He inhaled and tried to pull it together. “Yes. She’s…she’s in surgery. The nurse wouldn’t tell me her injuries. So I don’t really know…I don’t know what’s going on. I’m sorry…so sorry.” He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. Yes, yes he did. Vera was his lady, his gift to care for and protect. In the dark recesses of his mind, he couldn’t shake the cloying sense of failure. He’d known the roads were slippery. He should’ve insisted she wait for him to pick her up.

“Marcus? Marcus!” Marguerite yelled, interrupting his dark musings.

“Yes?”

Her long sigh irritated him but he remained silent.

“Vera needs you to hold it together. If you can’t, then get the hell out of there before the doctor comes out to speak to her next of kin. I should be there in another hour and a half, tops.” Her normal, soft Southern accent had turned into steel.

What the hell
? “I’m her next of kin and the hell if I’m going any damn where,” he shouted, jumping up. The vein throbbed in his forehead as he clenched the phone, imagining it was Marguerite’s neck. Nobody was making him leave his lady. He didn’t care who they were.

“You’re falling apart.”

“My woman’s in surgery and I don’t have a damn clue what’s wrong with her. I’m not falling apart. I’m pissed and….and I’m scared. I have to deal with that. But damn if I’m leaving.” He raked his hand through his hair as he walked back and forth.

“She’s not dead.”

His breath caught. “Don’t say that word,” he whispered, terrified. His jaw clenched as he yanked a section of hair and pulled. “Don’t even breathe it.”

“Marcus, you would know if she left, just as I would. Now pull yourself together before I get there or I’ll have security take you out of the room.”

A red mist rose up before him. It shook him to the core. It was if something had taken him over as he watched from a distance. “They’ll have to kill me first. I’m not going anywhere,” he growled. Chest heaving, he ground his teeth. “She’s mine, don’t forget that. If anybody’s going to leave, it won’t be me. You can bank on that.”

“I am, Lyon. I’m banking on that.” She disconnected the call.

He looked at the small device in his hand and wanted to yell his frustrations. What the hell had happened to Marguerite? He’d never heard her sound like that. Vera thought of her as a mother, but still, he was Vera’s man. He belonged to her and that trumped everything else. Didn’t it?

For several moments, he remained standing in the same spot, trying to bring his mind and body under some semblance of control. It was hard as hell quelling the desire to hurt someone for causing his woman harm. The thoughts drove him closer and closer to the edge. He wanted to pull up a chair and hurl it into the wall.

In desperation, he pulled out his wallet and grabbed the small picture he carried of Vera smiling into the camera. He’d printed it off his computer a while back and laminated it. Whenever he needed inspiration for his projects, he’d pull it out. Her smile always calmed him. Right now, he needed that in the worst way. The rage over his inability to protect her rode him hard. It was compounded by not knowing what was going on or what had happened to cause the accident. As his breathing normalized and his heartbeat slowed, he kissed her picture. It had never failed him.

Returning to the chair he’d been sitting in, he held his forehead in his palm. “I don’t want to fight Marguerite,” he whispered, hating the woman was on her way. The door opened but he didn’t bother to look up.

“Marcus Lyon?”

“Yes?” He glanced at the older woman walking toward him holding what appeared to be an electronic pad.

“I’m from Admitting and I need some information about Ms. Knight. Can you answer some questions?”

“Can you?” he asked, hoping they could make some sort of exchange.

Her sad smile gave him his answer. “No, I’m sorry I can’t. Not about Ms. Knight’s status, anyway. The doctor will come here to talk with you as soon as he can. In the meantime, I’d like to get started on filling out her paperwork for admittance.”

He nodded. “Okay, what do you need to know?”

“Let’s start with her full name.” The woman touched an electronic keypad and looked at him expectantly.

“Vera Louise Knight.” He remembered the night she’d explained her middle name was her grandmother’s first name. She’d gone on to tell him about her sixteen-year-old mom who’d given her to her father after she was born and then moved away with her family. Vera had never met or heard from the woman and had no interest in seeking her out.

“My Nana Louise was my mama and then Marguerite stepped in. I’m more than blessed,” she had said when he asked if she was curious about her birth mother.

“Date of birth?”

“February twentieth, 1983.” He’d promised her a surprise for her next birthday. Shutting his eyes to stop the memories, he answered the next questions mechanically. She had a copy of the insurance card and after answering the final questions about what things Vera was allergic to, the woman left. She’d left him alone with a gnawing ache in his soul from remembering all those tiny details about his lady.

Grief-stricken, he pulled out his cell and dialed a number he hadn’t dialed in weeks. It was answered after two rings. Swallowing around the block of ice in his chest, he managed to croak out a greeting.

“Mama.”

Marcus sat, holding the phone to his ear in a death grip while listening to his mother do what she always did best, talk some sense into him. It’d been her stern yet loving words that had helped him return to the land of the living after the debacle with his former Mistress.

“She’s in surgery right now. I’m waiting to hear something.”

“Are you alone?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. They don’t allow many people back here.”

“I take it this is the young woman you told me about, the one you’re living with in Georgia.”

“Yes. Vera.” He paused. “Ma, I love her. I can’t lose her.” Head bent, he closed his eyes.

“Shh, don’t borrow trouble. You don’t know what’s wrong yet. It could be her leg’s broken and it’s taking a little time to fix it. You’ve got to believe she’s going to be okay, son. She deserves your faith, not your tears right now.”

“I know.” He inhaled. “It’s just so frustrating not knowing.”

“You used to have more patience. That’s what you need right now. Think on good things. When am I going to meet her?”

“As soon as she’s able, I promise.”

“Is she a keeper?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Tonight I had a special surprise for her. I planned to give her—” He stopped, realizing his mom wouldn’t understand the significance of the bracelet he’d purchased. “I planned to give her a gift of my commitment to her,” he said instead.

“A ring?” Her voice rose with a thread of hope.

“No, not a ring.” He stopped that train of thought right away. One day, Vera would wear his ring, but this wasn’t the time for that discussion. “More like a bracelet I ordered especially for her.”

“A bracelet?”

He heard her disappointment through the line and smiled. “Yeah. It’s platinum with both our names on it. I can’t wait to place it around her wrist.”

“A bracelet? Are you sure she’s going to enjoy that?”

He understood her wariness. “It’s what she told me she wanted.”

“Okay. Your father just walked in and I’ll tell him what happened. We’ll get on the road after supper.”

Get on the road
? “No mom. I need you there. There’s not much you can do here.”

“I can be there for you.” He picked up the stubbornness in her tone and realized she needed a good reason to change her mind.

“Ma. You see how I’m able to talk with you now? If you were here, you’d be waiting in another part of the hospital. I need to be able to hear your voice even while I sit next to her in ICU. There are places the only way I can talk to you is by phone and I need to be able to do that.”

“Marcus….”

“You have no idea how much just hearing your voice helps me. No matter what’s happened, I have to be strong for Vera. I get that, but when I falter or things get tough, I need to be able to get to you even when I can’t leave her side. You understand?”

She released a sigh. “I do. It just doesn’t feel right you being there by yourself without family. Let me talk to your dad. Maybe he’ll drive down just for a day while I wait for you to call with updates.” He could tell she didn’t agree, but she wanted to help him and right now being accessible by phone was the best way.

The door opened. A medium-framed male entered with a clipboard. “Marcus Lyon?” His dark eyes speared Marcus through the lenses of the glasses he wore.

“Gotta go, the doctor just walked in.” He clicked off. “I’m Marcus. Are you the doctor who worked on Vera?” He stepped closer to the smaller man.

“I’m one of them, Dr. Jacoby. I understand you want information over what happened to Ms. Knight and have questions.” He peered up at Marcus.

“Of course,” Marcus snapped at the ludicrous comment. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The doctor nodded and flipped through the papers. “She was involved in a three-car accident. One car hit her from behind, the other hit the driver’s side.”

Marcus bit his lip harder to fight the terror that threatened to consume him over the doctor’s plain speaking. Imagining her helpless and pinned in her car stole his breath. The excruciating pain she must have experienced at impact rocked him. He fought to stay upright.

The doctor continued. “I won’t go into the medical terms, but here’s an overview. The most critical issue was the swelling in her brain. She wasn’t responding to our attempts to bring her around. We performed a ventriculostomy.”

Marcus shook his head at the term.

“Sorry,” the doctor said. “A ventriculostomy relieves the pressure in her brain. We drilled a small hole in her scalp, and inserted a small tube to drain off excess and watch the cerebrospinal fluid. This releases pressure due to swelling. We will be monitoring her to make sure there’s no other damage. Her spinal cord took a hard hit. There’s bruising and possible nerve damage. We have to wait to see how she responds to stimuli when she awakens. That’s a potential long-term problem she may have to handle.” He eyed Marcus.

“Okay,” Marcus said, trying to understand the hole-in-the-head thing, but if it’d make things better for her, it was good. The bruises on her spinal cord made sense, since the cars had hit her from behind and on the side.

“Two fractured lower left ribs; there was bruising to her chest from the exploding air bags. Those will heal over time. A broken left femur, sorry, thigh bone, had to be reset. We used an external splint, so don’t be concerned with the hardware on her leg. We may change it out to a cast later. Depends on how she heals. She’ll need therapy to re-strengthen the muscles for that leg. Also, the left lower arm cracked.” He looked over his glasses. “Her leg and arm have been set. She’ll be in traction for her leg for a couple of weeks, but should heal fine. She has small cuts on her face, arms, and legs.” He sighed and pulled off his glasses.

A queasiness filled Marcus’ stomach as he waited for the doctor to finish.

“Ms. Knight suffered a multitude of injuries. Their combination makes for a long, but eventual recovery. There are some things we don’t know yet, like the extent of nerve damage, or how well she’ll respond to treatment.”

Marcus swallowed hard, trying to make sense of the information running wild in his mind. His thoughts cleared and settled.
Vera is alive
.
The surgery was a success
.
She’s alive
. He frowned. Did he say they’d made a hole in her skull? Her left leg was broken, but would heal. Was something wrong with her back? Spinal cord? They didn’t know. He exhaled and concentrated on what was most important.
My lady is alive after being hit by two cars
. Damn, two cars?

He wiped his face with his hand before gazing at the doctor. “She’s in no danger?” he asked, wanting to be sure.

“I didn’t say that. We have to monitor the swelling of her brain. It’ll be days before we know the true extent of the nerve damage. Resetting an arm and leg is one thing, but the spinal cord and brain….” He shook his head. “Those are more of a wait-and-see result. We have set the body in what we believe is the optimal position to repair itself. A lot depends on how healthy she was prior to the accident.”

“She’s strong and healthy,” Marcus said.

The doctor looked at his notes again. “I’d have to agree with you. Do you have any questions?” He looked at Marcus and waited.

“I have a ton of questions, but right now I’m so glad she’s alive with a chance to overcome everything, I can’t think of a one.” He released a breath. “When can I see her?”