If I could just touch him, talk to him, maybe Jack wouldn’t die. I could fix this. Undo what I had done. He would be okay—
“Ma’am, I need to you to calm down.” That same voice in my ear, speaking in crisp Italian. “We need to help him, but you’re making that difficult. He’s bleeding and needs immediate medical attention.”
A heartbeat. Two.
That’s how long it took for it to sink in.
I whirled to stare into the eyes of a young officer holding me.
I turned back to Jack, lying in the rain.
Jack was bleeding.
Jack wasstillbleeding.
He wasbreathing. He washere.Chest rapidly rising up and down.
Two police officers flew past me, collapsing to their knees, medical kits at their sides. They worked furiously on Jack, ripping away his clothing, touching him.
Touching.Him.
“Jack!”
I collapsed to my knees, those arms still holding me back.
“Ma’am,” that same voice behind me.
“I’ll be good,” I sobbed, “I promise I won’t shoot him again. Just let me touch him.”
Something in my mental patient raving must have gotten through to them. The officer released me.
I collapsed beside Jack’s head.
I smoothed his wet hair off his forehead and ran my fingers over his face, his nose, his lips. I scraped my fingernails against his stubble. I cupped his cheek and feathered kisses across his closed eyes.
I memorized him with my touch. I pressed my cold lips against his. I tasted the salt of my tears on his skin. He smelled of brandy and peppermint and some manly old-fashioned cologne.
All the while talking to him like the love sick idiot I was.
“I’m here, Jack. Stay with me. I can’t bear to lose you. Not now. Not like this. Please don’t leave me.”
Why he was still corporeal, I didn’t know. I was shocked brainless by the solidity of him underneath my palm, his short puffs of air against my lips.
The officers peeled away Jack’s bloody waistcoat, pressing gauze against the bullet wound in the right side of his chest.
I hiccupped, just managing to choke back a gasping sob.
I had done this. I had hurt him.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked the paramedics.
“I can’t say, ma’am. A gunshot wound to the chest is always serious.”
Sounds intruded. Emergency sirens. An officer on the phone asking for a med evac helicopter.
Chaos.
My mind short-circuited. All I could see was the shallow rise and fall of Jack’s chest. All I could feel were the faint puffs of air against my cheek. All I could do was pray that my vision didn’t come to pass. That Jack would live.
