When she walks away, I’m grateful to have Bear and his club brothers in my corner. Their support means everything.
***
The waiting seems endless. A couple of hours tick by in no time and I start to pace.
After a few minutes, Bear comes to me, asking, “Can I do anything to help you?”
“I just need to see him,” I whisper, starting to feel desperate.
“I know,” he tells me. “They should let us know any minute now.”
I can’t help voicing my worst fear. “What if he doesn’t wake up? I can’t lose him when I just found him.”
He holds my gaze. “I won’t even give that serious consideration. Rick has been through hell and back. He survived situations that would break a normal man. Trust me, you’re worrying about something you don’t have to worry about here.”
That puts my mind at ease. So, I walk over and wrap my arms around his waist.
“Thanks for reassuring me.”
His arms come up around me like steel bands.
Before we can break away, the doors in the back open again, and a man steps out. He’s older, with salt and pepper hair, but his soft gray eyes look tired. He’s wearing blue scrubs with a white coat thrown over so I’m guessing he’s one of the doctors. His gaze sweeps over us, and he smiles. He looks at Bear, then at me, then at Siege.
“I’m Dr. Barnes. You’re all here for Rick Mullins, right?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, hurrying over to him. “My name is Natalie Mullins. I’m Rick’s sister and next of kin.”
The doctor reaches out to shake my hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Dr. Patchett told me he already gave you the rundown on his injuries, so I won’t go through all that again. The surgery went well. We’ve re-inflated his lung and pinned his ulna. His skull was fractured and there was considerable swelling. However, there’s no active bleeding. As Dr. Patchett probably told you, we’ve put him in a medically induced coma to allow his brain time to recover from the trauma.”
“I’ve had time to get my head around the fact that he’s in a coma. I just want to do everything I can to make sure he recovers as quickly as possible.”
“He’s stabilized now. Your brother has been moved into ICU. You can visit one at a time, briefly. Then what he needs is quiet and rest.”
“I can see him now?” I ask as relief floods my brain.
The doctor hesitates, then says, “Of course. One at a time, for ten minutes each.”
Bear steps forward. “You go first Natalie. I’ll go after you. Then the others can have a turn.”
I follow the doctor back to Rick’s bed. It’s in a room made of glass with a door that shuts. I realize almost immediately the rooms are glass so the nurses can see the patients at all times. Clever setup, I think to myself.
I go to his bedside, and I let out a sharp gasp, taking in everything that’s different since the last time I saw him. He’s lying there with the top of his hospital bed slightly elevated. He’s pale, bruised and has a long scrape up one arm, exposing raw skin with dried blood visible. As the nurse warned me, there are wires everywhere and machines beeping every so often. If I hadn’t been told about it, then I think I would have panicked. As it is, even though I know they are there for his benefit I can’t help thinking it looks like they’re what’s keeping him alive.
“Can he breathe?” I ask the nurse who’s standing beside me.
“He’s on a ventilator, so the machine is breathing for him. That’s due to the medically induced coma. It allows his body to heal completely.”
My hand flies to my mouth because this is all my fault. They used him to get to me. I know it all the way down to my bones. Bear said someone cut his brake line and caused him to wreck. I know he and his club brothers were thinking it might be someone who has a vendetta against the club. But it has to be linked to my foster parents. They already sent one of their church cronies after me. What if this is what came next?
“Time to go, honey,” the nurse says.
I reach over to touch the back of Rick’s hand. It’s the only part of his body that’s not wired up.
“You’ll be able to stay for longer tomorrow,” she adds.
When I come back out to the waiting room, Bear and his club brothers are talking about who could have cut my brother’s brake line. Bear slips off to see Rick and I let the conversation flow around me. They have a lot of ideas because they’ve had a lot of enemies over the years. They speak in hushed voices that only we can hear.
When Bear comes back, I want to talk to him about it possibly being someone sent by my foster family. Unfortunately, I don’t get a chance because a man walks into the waiting room. He scans the room, and the moment his gaze lands on our group, he starts walking towards us.
