He used his grip on my hair to drag me down to the floor. His temper had heated to full boil, and he was shouting more filthy words, jamming the gun against my head. My mind, my emotions, disengaged from what was happening, the intimate violence that was coming. Just like before, only now with a gun at my head. I wondered dazedly if he would pull the trigger. His body crushed mine as he used his weight to pin me down. His breath was rank and boozy as he muttered near my ear. “Don’t scream, or I’ll kill you.”
I was stiff, all muscles bitterly tensed. I wanted so badly to survive. My mouth flooded with the flavors of salt and metal. The familiar-awful touch of his hand paralyzed me as he started to drag the hem of my skirt up.
We were both so absorbed in our savage struggle, one bent on inflicting harm, one resisting body and soul, that neither of us heard the door open.
The air vibrated with an inhuman sound, and the entire room exploded, chaos unfolding. I managed to look up, my neck twisting painfully, and a brutal form was rushing toward us, and the gouge of cold metal left my skull as Nick raised the gun and fired.
Silence.
My ears were temporarily numb, my body resounding with the force of my terrified heartbeat. The smothering weight was gone. I rolled to my side and opened my blurry eyes. Two men were brawling in a pounding, choking, jaw-cracking dogfight, sweat and blood flying.
Hardy was on top of Nick, pummeling over and over. I could see the fight draining out of Nick as damage accumulated, bones fracturing, skin rupturing, and still Hardy wouldn’t stop. There was blood everywhere — Hardy’s left side was drenched and welling crimson.
“Hardy,” I cried out, lurching to my knees. “Hardy, stop.” He didn’t hear me. He had lost his mind, every impulse and thought bent on destruction. He was going to kill Nick. And judging from the rate his own blood was pouring out, he would kill himself in the process.
The gun, knocked out of Nick’s hand, had skittered a few yards away. I crawled over and picked it up. “Hardy, leave him alone now! That’s enough! It’s over. Hardy — ”
Nothing I said or did was going to matter. He was on an adrenaline-fueled rampage.
I had never seen so much blood. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t passed out yet.
“Damn it, Hardy, I need you,” I shouted.
He paused and looked over at me, panting. His eyes were slightly unfocused. “I need you,” I repeated, staggering to my feet. I went to him and pulled at his arm. “Come with me. Come to the sofa.”
He resisted, looking down at Nick, who had passed out, his face swollen and battered.
“It’s okay now,” I said, continuing to tug at Hardy. “He’s down. It’s over. Come with me. Come on.” I repeated the words several times, coaxing and commanding and hauling him to the sofa. Hardy looked ashen and haggard, his face contorting as the murderous instinct faded and pain began to hit him. He tried to sit, ended up collapsing, his fists suspended in midair. He’d been shot on his side, but there was so much blood, I couldn’t see the exact location or extent of the damage.
Still holding the gun, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed some folded dishtowels. I set the gun on the coffee table and ripped Hardy’s shirt open.
“Haven,” he said through thready breaths, “did he hurt you? Did he — ”
“No. I’m fine.” I wiped at the blood and found the wound, a surprisingly small, neat hole. But I couldn’t see an exit wound, which mean the bullet had gone in and possibly ricocheted, doing damage to the spleen, liver, or kidney . . . I wanted to burst into tears, but I forced them back and placed the pad of dishtowels over the wound. “Hold still. I’m going to put pressure on your side to slow the bleeding.
He let out a groan as I pushed downward. His lips were turning gray. “Your ear — ”
“It’s nothing. Nick hit me with the gun, but it wasn’t — ”
“I’ll kill him — ” He was trying to rise from the sofa.
I shoved Hardy back down. “Stay still, you idiot! You’ve been shot. Do not move.” I put his hand over the folded dishtowels to maintain the pressure while I dashed to get the phone.
I called 911, David, and Jack, while keeping the dishtowels clamped tightly on the wound.
Jack was the first to reach my apartment. “Holy shit.” He took in the scene before him, my ex-husband stirring on the floor, Hardy and me on the sofa. “Haven, are you — ”
“I’m fine. Make sure Nick doesn’t do anything else.”
Jack stood over my ex-husband with an expression I’d never seen him wear before. “As soon as I get the chance,” he told Nick in a deadly quiet voice, “I’m going to drop you in your tracks and gut you like a feral hog.”
The paramedics arrived, followed soon by the police, while the building security guards kept anxious neighbors from coming in. I wasn’t aware of the exact moment Nick was taken out of the apartment by the police, I was too absorbed in Hardy. He drifted in and out of consciousness, his skin clammy, his breathing weak and fast. He seemed confused, asking me at least three times what had happened, and if I was okay.
“Everything’s fine,” I murmured, stroking his tumbled hair, gripping his free hand firmly while a paramedic inserted a large bore needle for an IV. “Be quiet.”
“Haven . . . had to tell you . . . ”
“Tell me later.”
“Mistake . . . ”
“I know. It’s okay. Hush and be still.”
I could tell he wanted to say something else, but the other paramedic put him on high-flow oxygen and applied patches for a cardiac monitor, and fitted him with a stabilizing board for transport. They were fast and efficient. What
EMS
professionals call the “golden hour” had started: the time between when a victim was shot and the time he arrived at a trauma center for treatment. If more than sixty minutes passed before he got treated, his chances of survival started to drop.
I rode with Hardy in the ambulance while Jack drove to the hospital. It was only for Hardy’s sake that I managed to stay outwardly calm. Inside, I felt an anguish that seemed too great for a human heart to withstand.
We arrived at the ambulance entrance, and the paramedics lifted Hardy on a gurney up to the building floor, which was slightly higher than the floor of the ambulance.
Liberty and Gage were already at the trauma unit, having been alerted by Jack. I guessed the rest of my family wouldn’t be far behind. I hadn’t given a thought to how I must have looked, all wild-eyed and bloodstained, but I gathered from their expressions that my appearance was a cause for concern. Liberty put her jacket over my shirt and cleaned my face with some baby wipes from her purse.
When she discovered the lump behind my ear, she and Gage insisted that I get it looked at, despite my howls of protest.
“I’m not going anywhere, I’m going to stay right here until I find out what’s going on with Hardy — ”
“Haven.” Gage was in front of me, his steady gaze boring into mine. “It’s going to be a long time before they’ve got any news. They’re checking his blood type, doing CT scans and X-rays . . . believe me, you’re not going to miss a thing. Now let someone look at that hard head of yours. Please.”
I was cleaned and bandaged, and sent back to the trauma unit waiting room. As Gage had predicted, there was no news. Hardy was in surgery, although no one would tell us what it was for, or how long it would last. I sat and stared blindly at the television in the corner of the room, wondering if I should call Hardy’s mother. I decided to wait until I found out something about his condition — hopefully something reassuring — that I could relay along with the news that he’d been hurt.
As I waited, guilt sucked me down like quicksand. I had never imagined Hardy would suffer for my past mistakes. If only I had never gotten involved with Nick . . . if only I had never started a relationship with Hardy . . .
“Don’t think that.” I heard Liberty’s gentle voice beside me.
“Don’t think what?” I asked dully, drawing up my knees to sit cross-legged on the hard plastic chair.
“Whatever it is that’s put that look on your face.” Her arm slid around my shoulders. “You’re not to blame for any of this. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to Hardy.”
“Oh, obviously,” I muttered, casting a glance at the doors leading to surgery.
She squeezed me a little. “When I saw the two of you at the rigs-to-reefs party the other night, I couldn’t believe the difference in Hardy. I’ve never seen him look so relaxed and happy. Comfortable in his skin. I didn’t think anyone could ever do that for him.”
“Liberty . . . something’s gone wrong the past couple of days. Dad and Uncle T.J. — ”
“Yes, I know about that. Churchill told me. He also told me about something that happened today, which you really need to hear.”
“What is it?”
“I think Churchill should be the one to tell you.” She nudged me to look toward the visitors’ entrance, where my father and Joe were just coming in. Liberty stood and motioned Dad over to us, and he eased into the chair beside me. And in spite of all my anger and feelings of betrayal, I leaned against him and put my head on his shoulder, breathing in his leathery Dad-smell.
“What happened, Punkin?” he asked.
I kept my head on his shoulder as I told him. Every now and then his hand came up and patted my arm gently. He seemed bewildered that Nick would have done something so crazy, and asked what had happened to drive him off the deep end. I thought of explaining that Nick had always been that way, that his abuse had destroyed our marriage. But I decided to save that particular conversation for a better time and place. So I just shook my head and shrugged and said I had no idea.
And then Dad surprised me by saying, “I knew Hardy was going to come see you tonight.”
I lifted my head and looked at him. “You did? How?”
“He called me around five today. Said he was sorry he’d agreed to the lease deal, and he’d already told T.J. it was off. He said he hadn’t been thinking straight on Saturday, and it had been a mistake on both sides — us for offering, and him for accepting.”
“He was right,” I said shortly.
“So the deal is off,” Dad said.
“Oh, no it isn’t!” I scowled at him. “You’re still going to keep your end of it. You make sure Hardy gets the leases at the fair price he offered, and tell T.J. to forget the bonus. And if you do that, I’ll be willing to give you another chance at a normal father-daughter relationship.”
I was determined that for once in his life, Hardy Cates was going to have it all.
“And you’re going to keep on seeing him?”
“Yes.”
My father smiled slightly. “Probably a good thing, considering what he told me about you.”
“What? What did he tell you?”
My father shook his head. “He asked me to keep it private. And I’m done interfering. Except . . . ”
I gave an unsteady laugh. “Except what? Damn it, Daddy, why do you have to quit interfering when you finally have something I want to hear? ”
“I can tell you this much. I’ve had two men approach me about their feelings for my daughter. One of ‘em was Nick. And I didn’t believe a word he said. Not because you’re not worth loving. Nick just didn’t have it in him. But Hardy Cates . . . for all that he’s a rascal and a born redneck . . . I believed him today. He wasn’t trying to sell me something. He was just telling me like it was. I respected that. And whatever you choose to do about him, I’ll respect that too.”
Two hours passed. I paced, sat, watched TV, and guzzled burnt-tasting coffee flavored with powdered creamer and fake sweetener. When I thought I was going to explode from the tension of not knowing anything, the door opened. A tall white-haired surgeon stood there, his gaze sweeping the room. “Any family for Hardy Cates?”
I shot over to him. “I’m his fiancée.” I thought that might get me more information. “Haven Travis.”
“Dr. Whitfield.” We shook hands.
“Mr. Cates used up all his luck on this one,” the surgeon said. “The bullet nicked the spleen, but no other organs were damaged. Almost a miracle. I’d have expected the bullet to bounce around a little more, but thankfully it didn’t. After we removed the bullet, we were able to do a relatively simple suture repair on the spleen and salvage it completely. Given Mr. Cates’s age and excellent health, there’s no reason to expect complications of any kind. So I’d say he’ll be in the hospital for about a week, and then it’ll take about four to six weeks more until he’s all healed up.”
My eyes and nose stung. I passed a sleeve over my eyes to blot them. “So he won’t have any problems from this in the future? No gimpy spleen or anything?”
“Oh, no. I’d expect a full recovery.”
“Oh, my God.” I let out a shuddering sigh. It was one of the best moments of my life. No, the absolute best. I was electrified and weak, and breathless. “I’m so relieved, I actually feel sort of queasy from it. Is that possible?”
“It’s either relief,” Dr. Whitfield said kindly, “or the waiting room coffee. Most likely the coffee.”
The hospital rule was that intensive care patients could have twenty-four-hour visitation. The catch was, you could only stay fifteen minutes per hour, except in special circumstances as approved by the nursing staff. I asked Gage to pull whatever strings he could to make sure I could come and go at will. My brother seemed vaguely amused by this, and reminded me about how I had once objected to using power and money to get special treatment. I told him that when you were in love, hypocrisy won out over principle. And Gage said he certainly understood that, and he went and got me special permission to stay with Hardy as long as I wanted.
I dozed in a reclining chair in Hardy’s room most of the night. The problem was, a hospital was the worst place in the world to sleep. Nurses came in hourly, exchanging IV bags, checking the monitors, and taking Hardy’s temperature and blood pressure. But I welcomed each interruption, because I loved hearing about how well he was doing, over and over again.
At daybreak Gage came to the hospital and told me he was going to drive me back to my apartment so I could shower and change. I didn’t want to leave Hardy, but I knew I looked like something the cat dragged in, and it was probably a good idea for me to clean up some.