Maddie and Wyn (16 page)

Putting his lips against her bloody forehead, Wyn whispered, “Please, please, please,” tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Don’t leave me.”

A tiny kernel in Wyn’s brain popped, hinting at helpful information stored in his mind for dealing with emergencies. Chaotic screaming shouts of fear and hurt and panic smothered that hint of reason though, consuming Wyn’s thoughts and action. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. He could only clutch Maddie to him and whisper, “No, no, no,” unable to accept fate would do this, begging her to wake up.

Whether mere seconds, minutes, or hours passed with Maddie in his arms, unmoving, Wyn didn’t know. He just knew he was chanting over her, pleading with her to come back to him, when suddenly Teri and Gwen were upon him, one next to him in the snow, the other at his back.

“Oh my goodness.” Gwen, she had the blonder hair of the two, kneeled next to him on the ground. She brushed Maddie’s hair out of the blood on her face and unzipped Maddie’s overcoat. “We heard you shouting and just knew this time it wasn’t the two of you teasing each other. We got to you as fast as we could.”

Still on her feet, Teri paced the length of Maddie’s body, satellite phone at her ear. “I’m calling rescue right now.”

His mind a messy fog, Wyn looked at this stranger next to him, the only lifeline in his spiraling nightmare right now. “She-she won’t wake up.”

Her expression serene, Gwen squeezed his arm. “We aren’t going to let that worry us right now.”

A new shot of pain spiked in Wyn’s chest.
Why won’t she listen to me?
“She won’t wake up!” Switching from holding Maddie, Wyn grabbed this too-calm woman and shook her. “She won’t wake up!”

Without batting an eye, Gwen smacked Wyn, the thick glove covering her hand muting the force of her strike. “Look at me.” She grabbed his head with both hands, forcing his attention straight on her. “I need you to focus. I need you to follow everything I tell you to do, and we’re going to make sure Maddie is okay. We’ll take care of her how we can while we’re here, and get help to her as fast as possible.” Holding his stare with the piercing clarity of a woman used to being in charge, for a split-second the woman in front of him morphed into his loving, strong mother, and her voice and touch began to penetrate his skull. “Can you focus for me and help me do that?”

Wyn nodded and wiped the cold sweat from his face. “Yes.” Some of the fog beginning to dissipate, but not enough to trust himself, Wyn said, “Tell me what to do.”

After that, Gwen took charge. Without knowing of the woman’s background or abilities, Wyn followed her orders anyway, not trusting himself to think straight or make good decisions.

* * * *

Hours later, late into the evening, Wyn followed a nurse, Aidan, Devlin, and Ethan down a clinically cold hall to Maddie’s room. A few minutes ago the doctor had come to tell them Maddie was in good shape and would be fine, and that they could go see her, but with every step Wyn took more and more lead filled his legs, challenging his ability to move.

When they reached Maddie’s room, the other three rushed inside. Wyn stalled at the door, unable to lift his foot over the threshold and enter the space. In bed, bandaged and bruised, Maddie lay there alive and on her way to mending. Each breath she took punched and stabbed Wyn, bruising and cutting him with permanent scars only he could feel and see.

Love mixed with fear inside him, saturating his very bones and infecting his blood, giving terrible, painful life to those invisible injuries inking his body. Maddie looked up at him then, adoration still lighting her wan smile and bleary eyes, and the knife tore right up Wyn’s middle and sank clean through his heart. Bleeding out, unable to halt the flow, Wyn spun and strode down the hall, desperate to get away and put a noose on his emotions before they consumed him whole.

Wyn kicked into the first men’s room he found. The guy at the urinals inside took one look at him, zipped up his pants, and rushed out of the small, chemical-smelling facility.

Bracing himself on the sink, Wyn faced himself in the mirror, but the big, strong, blunt exterior reflecting back at him lied. He snarled at his image, knowing now what a weak person was housed inside the muscle.

Staring longer and harder, Wyn grew boiling hot inside, the steam and heat fueling his hate-filled rage. Roaring loud enough to shake the walls, he turned and slammed his fist into the paper towel dispenser attached to the wall, hitting hard enough to crack bone. The tidal wave inside him not diminishing one bit, Wyn punched the metal box again and again and again, the force breaking through his skin and knocking the dispenser to the floor. Still not enough, his breath coming in gulping heaves, he spun and charged the opposite wall, ramming his knuckles into a hygiene poster covering the tan painted plaster. Crackling lines of pain radiated from his hand up into his arm, but Wyn whipped his arm back again, a fiery ball of need desperate to erupt.

Wyn swung in, but this time an equal force wrapped around his arm. A sharp, “Stop it right now,” rang through the room, both stopping Wyn cold and preventing his knuckles from coming into contact with the wall.

Wyn fought to free his arm, but with a second command to stop, Ethan spun Wyn and pushed him up against the wall, holding him in place with a forearm across his chest. Snaps of blue fire lit Ethan’s eyes, and although slighter in height and build, right now Ethan looked like a golden giant to Wyn.

“Can I let you go,” Ethan asked, “or are you going to fight me some more?”

Glaring, breathing like an exhausted animal, Wyn nonetheless raised his hands in surrender.

Ethan released Wyn, but he barely stepped back and didn’t give Wyn an ounce of breathing room. “What’s going on with you, man? What the hell just happened to you?”

Slipping again, Wyn banged the back of his head against wall, searching for release from the terrible, ugly knots twisted up inside him. Ethan pulled him away and backed him against the sinks, his frown another stab to Wyn’s middle.

“What?” Cuffing Wyn’s neck, Ethan held him close. “I’m your brother. You know you can talk to me.”

Wyn didn’t want the words to come out, didn’t want anyone to know what a pathetic weakling he was, but he’d never lied or misled his brother before. Unable to do so now, he blurted, “I choked.” Shame burned Wyn’s throat, and he could barely look Ethan in the eyes. “I needed to save her, and I choked.”

Ethan’s brow furrowed into a crinkly point. “What are you talking about? You both had a scare, but Maddie is going to be fine.”

“It wasn’t me.”

His features scrunching even more, Ethan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Spilling his guts, Wyn explained how he’d been unable to think clearly enough to help Maddie, and that if not for Gwen and Teri finding them, Wyn would likely still be crouched in the snow, incoherent, uselessly pleading for Maddie, who’d likely have died by that point, never to wake up.

So very raw inside, Wyn choked on his failure, the taste so bitter and vile he could not swallow it. “Maddie has saved me from falling into bad head spaces dozens of times, but literally the one time she needed me to save her life, I couldn’t do it.” His fear turned even more rancid, leaking into his system like acid, eating away at him. “I panicked. I was so scared she would die that I couldn’t think and ended up doing nothing.”

Ethan squeezed Wyn’s forearm, and visible empathy filled his ocean-blue eyes. “So you freaked out. It’s not the end of the world—”

“It is for me!” Wyn raged, shoving Ethan away from him. “This is my job. I’m trained to keep my head in a crisis. I’ve worked for years to maintain my cool under pressure and get a tight situation to a successful end. But the one time I needed to perform, the one time I was the only one there to take charge, I couldn’t think clearly enough to act.”

In fast response, Ethan rushed at Wyn and shook him. “Because you were too close to the situation, and it came up on you fast. There’s a reason surgeons don’t operate on their own family, genius. It’s because they’re too close to the situation and might not be able to think clearly if a crisis occurs. You were too close, and you had a blip. You panicked. But now you have experience with what it feels like to be in a boiler situation with someone you care about, and you won’t lose your cool again.”

His head spinning, bleak through to his core, Wyn fell back against the wall, his legs wobbly. He looked across the bathroom at his big brother, and whispered weakly, “I couldn’t deal with the pressure with Mom.”

Snaps of fiery blue instantly ignited Ethan’s stare. “That’s not true.”

Wyn nodded in the face of Ethan’s denial. “When it was my turn to sit with Mom, to take care of her, to sit there and watch her die…” His voice cracked, and he blinked back wetness threatening to fall. “I called you all the time because I was weak and it was too hard to deal with by myself.”

“And I called you too,” Ethan reminded him quickly, pointing at him. “Don’t forget that part. We helped each other. Don’t twist this in your mind to something that it isn’t.”

As if he could see through walls, Wyn looked in the direction of Maddie’s room and a lump knotted in his throat. “I can’t even look at Maddie now. I keep thinking about how I failed her. I keep seeing her unconscious. And that image morphs into her being dead.” A shudder rocked through Wyn, icing him to his bones, and he hardened against himself even more. “Which she would have been, if it had been left on my shoulders to save her.”

Shaking his head, Ethan looked toward the ceiling, sighing long and hard. “You don’t know that, man. You’re not a fortune teller; don’t act like you can predict the future. For all you know, even if those women hadn’t come along, one second later your head might have cleared and you would have done everything you needed to do to get Maddie to a hospital.”

Wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands, Wyn sharply shook his head. “No.”

“Yes.” Ethan said, “Use your brain,” and tapped Wyn hard on the side of his head. “Does the possibility, just the mere possibility exist, that because you do have that vital emergency information stored in your head, is it possible that you could have gained clarity and helped Maddie on your own?”

Unable to forgive himself, Wyn could only admit, “The information is there.”

Light came back into Ethan’s eyes, and he cuffed Wyn around the neck. “So the possibility does exist. You cannot spend your life beating yourself up over this. You cannot live a life where you must be perfect one hundred percent of the time or face the firing squad. If you put that kind of demand on yourself it will kill you as sure as Mom’s cancer killed her. And I will not lose you too.” Ethan dragged Wyn in, touching their foreheads, as his voice went rough. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Brother to brother, Wyn wouldn’t let Ethan suffer another loss. “You won’t lose me too.”

“Good.” Ethan switched from holding Wyn’s neck to putting an arm across his shoulders and guiding him to the exit. “Now let’s get back to Maddie before Aidan and Dev begin to ask questions that maybe you don’t want to answer yet.”

His heart rate spiking, Wyn reared and spun away from his brother.

Not giving an inch, Ethan settled a steady, penetrating gaze on Wyn. “I see you, man. I know what’s in your heart without you having to spell it out for me. I’m not blind to the charms of the Morgan family either.” Red stained his cheeks then, which considering how long Ethan had been with Aidan, was sweet. “So maybe I have a little more insight than most.”

“Nothing has happened yet,” Wyn swore, and even raised his hand as if making a pledge. “We’re just friends.” Maybe not emotionally one hundred percent true, but technically it was correct.

This time Ethan held up his hands in surrender, but he grinned as he did it. “That’s between you and Maddie. It’s not my place to speak on whatever the two of you share before you’re ready to do it yourselves.”

“Thank you.” A roller coaster of a day already, Wyn wasn’t ready to deal with possible blowback from Maddie’s brothers.

“No problem.” Ethan slung his arm around Wyn’s shoulder again. “Let’s go.”

As they walked out of the bathroom, Wyn’s focus slid back inside, and the sight of the mess hit him, highlighting everything he’d failed to do today.

“I should talk to someone about what I did in there,” he murmured, shame flooding back into his being. “I should pay for the damage I did.”

Ethan jostled him a bit at his side. “Sounds good.”

On the way back to Maddie’s room, Wyn stopped at the nurse’s station, explained that he’d done some damage to the bathroom, and left his information to pass along to the hospital administration. He was also given some gauze to wrap around his knuckles. He then entered Maddie’s hospital room with Ethan, and even managed to smile when Maddie looked at him. Cold still went through him though, and all he saw was her lying in the snow covered in blood.

Wyn’s breathing thickened, and he silently started reciting police codes in an effort to control the fear-drenched chaos living inside him. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to flee, but somehow he managed to stay…

* * * *

Steeling herself for a battle, Maddie entered her home, tense, hoping to avoid conflict but ready to face Wyn head-on if need be. With an exhale, she kicked off her sneakers and smoothed her hands down her tank top and jeans shorts, even though both had been protected under coveralls all day and were in perfectly good shape. That done, she strode down the hall and entered the living room, prepared to toss her keys on the table, but the sight before her stopped her at the entry in her tracks. Wyn lay on the couch asleep, on his side, his jeans riding low and his T-shirt bunched halfway up his stomach, revealing taut, ripped abdominal muscles.

Oh my.
Looking all around the room, everywhere but toward the couch, Maddie tried to focus on anything other than Wyn. Her pulse threaded though, and with just that one glance she felt like she was full of magnets inside and they were pulling her toward the power that Wyn exuded, even when asleep.

Studying the room, Maddie tried to gloss over Wyn but her attention landed on him again.
Good heavens, he’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
She couldn’t help herself, she drank him in with one long look, and everything inside her sighed and bloomed as if given the nourishment needed to flourish.