Sexual Healing for Three (42 page)

337

He’d made sure there hadn’t been much pain for the man, taking his life with a quick thrust and twist of his knife blade into the young man’s abdomen before he left the body in a deserted, seldom used area of the hospital.

Either way, he planned to be done with what he needed to do and out of Belfiore long before anyone found the body.

He found the heifer’s unguarded room, thankful to whoever had started a commotion in the emergency room and pulled the policeman away from the door. He knew, however, that he couldn’t dawdle. He wouldn’t.

He stepped across the threshold of the room, comforted by the feel of the knife nestled against his leg in the side of his boot. He wouldn’t use it, though he was sorely tempted and wanted to spill the bitch’s blood.

No, this would not be actual wet work.

She was unconscious, probably in a coma. She was helpless. All he had to do was put a pillow over her face and hold it down hard to snuff out her life—no struggle, no muss, no fuss.

Deep down he thought he would miss the struggle, like when he’d killed his mother and watched the light leave her eyes, saw the realization in her expression that she had brought her death on herself, that her end was all her fault and no one else’s. But he would just have to make do, be happy that the bitch would be gone and wouldn’t be around to interfere with his pursuit of Russ anymore.

He walked across the room and slipped the pillow from behind her head.

She didn’t stir.

He just stood at her bedside for a long moment, glancing down at her serene face, holding the pillow in front of him like it was a shield before he lifted it and moved closer.

He had just lowered the pillow and pressed it against her face when he heard a feral growl behind him right before someone shouted his name.

338

Gracie C. McKeever

“Derek!”

* * * *

Russ sprinted across the room toward his employee.

He crashed into Derek’s abdomen headfirst, wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist as he slammed him back into the wall.

Equipment went rolling and crashing to the floor around them, and Russ was vaguely aware of Chance running into the room behind him and going to Donna.

He straddled Derek and felt flesh and bone crunching beneath his knuckles. He punched Derek in the face several times before the man got in a couple of kidney punches of his own.

“Russ, he’s got a knife!”

Russ instantly reacted to his brother’s warning, jerking back a second before Derek bucked him off and wielded a hunting knife.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Russ. I
love
you.”

Russ’s jaw dropped. “You
love
me?” This wasn’t happening. Was Derek
insane?
Love?
Why would he think it was okay to have the same feelings for Russ that Donna had for Russ? Derek didn’t even
know
him like that. And even if he did, Russ just didn’t go that way—

never had, never would. Not that he had anything against anyone who did.
He
just didn’t. He loved women.

Scratch that. He loved one woman, and she was in this hospital room not two feet away from a knife-wielding mad man.

Russ peered into Derek’s eyes, saw his obsession and wondered how he’d never recognized it before. How had he not noticed the man sinking into the depths of madness because of what he felt for Russ?

For the life of him he couldn’t remember what he had
done
to bring on Derek’s passion.

“She was getting in the way. They both were,” Derek spat, haphazardly waving his knife in Chance and Donna’s direction.

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Chance covered Donna’s body with his as Russ made a move toward Derek.

Derek got into a fighting crouch and slashed the air in front of him, nicking Russ across the abdomen.

Russ gasped, avoiding a deep cut, feinting back before dropping into a fighting crouch of his own.

“Drop the knife!”

Derek glanced behind Russ at the cop who had just arrived.

Russ hazarded a glance over his shoulder to see the cop with his gun drawn.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Derek repeated, circling closer, “but I’d rather see you dead than with the two of them!” He lunged for Russ, his knife outstretched.

“Drop it, or I’ll shoot!”

Russ dodged to the left and just missed taking a thrust to the ribs from Derek’s knife.

He tumbled onto his side as a shot rang out behind him, the bullet striking Derek in the chest dead-center.

Derek crumpled to his knees, clutching his chest with one hand and reaching out for Russ with the other.

The knife dropped out of his hand, and the cop came over, pointing his gun down at Derek with both hands as he kicked the knife across the linoleum.

Derek coughed, blood gurgling from the hole in his chest and from his mouth. He looked up at Russ as Russ got to his knees. “I only wanted you to love me. I needed you…”

Russ shook his head, backing away from the dying man and reaching behind him to grab hold of the bedrail. After a couple of tries, he managed to lift himself to his feet.

Chance rushed over to him just as several hospital staff rushed into the room in front of Donna’s parents and sister. He put his arm around his brother’s waist and helped him to a chair.

“Let me look at you.”

340

Gracie C. McKeever

“It’s just a scratch. I’ll be fine. What about Donna?”

“She’s alive.”

“She’s going to be okay,” Angela whispered.

Her parents, Russ, and Chance all looked at her.

She returned their stares and smiled. “A little birdie told me.”

Sexual Healing for Three

341

Derek Crawford was dead and buried at Potter’s Field on Hart Island. His death, while tragic, brought relief to several who appreciated that his passing meant one of the main threats to Donna’s life had been erased. His death could not be appreciated by the most important person, however.

Donna’s condition didn’t change. She didn’t open her eyes or show any signs that she would ever regain consciousness, languishing in a deep coma at Belfiore two weeks after the shooting in her hospital room.

Nothing the doctors did helped. Not even Chance’s abilities and unconventional remedies could bring her around, though he’d put the finishing touches on the surgeons’ efforts and worked on further healing her internal injuries.

Russ was beginning to wonder if she ever would wake up, if maybe Angela’s little birdie had been mistaken about all of them—

him, Chance, and Donna belonging together. He was beginning to wonder if she
wanted
to wake up.

He wouldn’t give up hope, though, couldn’t, and every day after work, he made the trek to the hospital to visit between the shifts when her family visited with her.

Today when he arrived, however, everyone was crowded in her room all at once—her parents, all her brothers and sisters, and in-laws gathered around her bed and made a fuss.

Standing just inside the doorway, like a cop in charge of crowd control, was Chance.

“What happened?”

342

Gracie C. McKeever

Chance turned and threw his arms around Russ. “Donna came out of her coma.”

“Really?”

Chance pulled away and nodded, his smile tinged with sadness.

“Why do I feel a but coming on?”

“She doesn’t remember what happened, and she doesn’t remember me, at least not our personal relationship.”

“She remembers her family.”

Chance nodded. “It’s not uncommon for the memory to come back in fragments, if at all, and for the oldest memories to come back first.”

“So she probably won’t remember me either.”

“That’s a possibility.”

Russ raked a hand through his hair. He couldn’t say that his happiness wasn’t colored by disappointment. He shook it off and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Hey, as long as she’s alive and well. That’s what’s important, right?”

“More memories could still come back. She only just woke up an hour ago. She’s got a lot to catch up on.”

“Yeah,” Russ agreed, trying to sound upbeat. But it was hard when all he’d been thinking about for the last two weeks was what he would do when she woke up, how they would celebrate her recovery.

Now it looked like she might not even know who he was.

“I just wanted you to be prepared before you go in,” Chance said.

“Thanks.” Russ watched as Chance hustled Donna’s family out of the room so that he could examine her.

The gang of them reluctantly filed out, greeting Russ in passing as they all headed en masse for the waiting area on the floor.

Russ waited at the door jamb as Chance pulled the curtain around Donna’s bed.

Was he going to try to make her remember him? Russ didn’t want that. He wanted her to remember them naturally, if at all. He had to
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343

trust that she would, that after all they had been through, they were meant to be together.

Several long minutes later, Chance pulled the curtain back and met him at the door with a smile, this time one not tempered with grief.

“She remembered you?”

Chance nodded and took him by a hand, but Russ pulled back.

“You didn’t do anything to her, did you?”

“Other than heal her injuries? No. Her memory came back on its own. I told you it would.” He smiled as he tried to drag Russ into the room, but Russ held firm.

“What if she still doesn’t remember me?”

“If she doesn’t now, she will. Have some faith.”

Russ wanted to, but couldn’t remember the last time he had entrusted his happiness into the hands of another, especially not some higher being that had been ignoring his pleas for help and mercy pretty well so far.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He thought of Angela’s little birdie and her faith and belief in soul mates.

He could do this. “Okay.”

“Good. Come on.”

Russ opened his eyes and followed his brother into the room to stand by Donna’s bed while Chance stood on the opposite side.

She smiled up at him, and his heart skipped a beat until he noticed the blank look in her eyes and realized she didn’t recognize him. Russ knew it before she opened her mouth to ask, “Who are you?”

He closed his eyes and tried to swallow down the bitter taste of frustration and sorrow that rose to his throat.

“Are you okay?”

He opened his eyes at her touch on his hand as he gripped her bedside rail.

“I’m fine,” he croaked.

“This is my brother, Russ, Donna.”

344

Gracie C. McKeever

“Russ.” She said it as if she was trying his name out on her tongue for the first time and enjoyed the taste of it. “Hmm, very rugged.”

Russ smiled, seeing shades of his smart-ass Donna behind the unfamiliar, soft-spoken woman before him. He clenched his hands at his sides to keep from reaching out to grab and hold her against him, as if he could force her memory back with his will and touch.

“Have we met before?”

“In a past life maybe,” he murmured and gazed across the bed at Chance. He might have felt better about his next move had Chance wore a smirk or gloatingly smiled, but his brother didn’t. Both sort of displays were beneath Chance.

Russ reached across the bed to grip his brother’s arm and smiled.

“The better man won.”

“Russ, it’s not like that, and it’s not over.”

“It’s okay, Chance. If I had to lose her to anyone, I’d rather it’s you.”

“Russ…”

He turned to leave, his heart pounding harder with each step toward the door until he reached it and heard Donna’s shout behind him.

* * * *

Donna watched Russ walk away, feeling bad for him and not knowing why. She felt like she was losing a part of herself. She just didn’t know which part. She didn’t like hurting him. The man had saved her life, after all, in more ways than one and—

Wait a minute! How did she know he had saved her life, and how dare he talk about her like she wasn’t there and had no mind of her own? He’d practically handed her off to Chance like she was some trophy to be lost or won.

“Damn it, Russ! Get back here!”

He peeked back in the room, eyebrows raised as he gawked at her.

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345

“Oooh, you’re going to get it now,” Chance teased.

Russ made his way back across the room and again took the spot opposite Chance beside Donna’s bed. “You bellowed?”

She put a fist on her hip, trying look as fierce as she could in a flimsy hospital gown, laid up in a hospital bed after coming out of a weeks-long coma.

She watched his lips quirking into a smile, the sight making her pussy pulse with desire and her heart pump with righteous indignation at his high-handed behavior. “I have a mind to forget I know either one of you right now.”

“What did
I
do?” Chance asked.

Donna ignored him, directing all her anger at Russ as she glared up at him. “Who in hell do you think you are to transfer ownership of me over to Chance like I have no say?”

“I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Since when do you let me have what I want, when I want it?”

“You didn’t remember me, Donna.”

“Didn’t. Past tense. Am I allowed a little recovery time after what happened to me? Sheesh!” She peered up at him and shook her head.

“Come here.” She reached for his T-shirt and balled a bunch of the front of it in her fist. “I remember a lot more about you than you can ever imagine.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like the fact that I love you, Russ.”

He gasped, shock clearly written on his face, and Donna liked that she had the ability to catch him off guard as much as he caught her off guard.

“You love me?”

“Very much,” she whispered, drawing him forward. She closed her eyes, and when his lips met hers, the taste of him infused her with emotion and purpose, filling in all the gaps of the last several weeks and before, like when she’d watched Chance come back into the room after her family had left. Everything just fell into place.