Conscience (The Bellator Saga Book 2) (4 page)

He checked his watch. “It’s almost midnight. Don’t try to talk.”

“But-”

He put his fingers to her lips. “Let’s get someone in here to take a look at you first. Do you remember what happened?”

She nodded yes.

“Are you in any pain?”

She bit her lip and looked away, then nodded yes again as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Don’t cry,” Jack whispered. “It’ll be okay.” He wiped the tear away with his thumb, letting it linger for longer than necessary. She could still feel the heat of his touch even after he reluctantly pulled away. He gave her a small smile and stood up. “I’ll find a nurse. Don’t go anywhere.”

*              *              *              *              *

The older African American woman tending to her was friendly. She’d been kind enough to get Caroline some eye drops, so the room was no longer blurry.

“Congressman, would you like some coffee?” she asked. “One of the other duty nurses made a pot.”

Jack rubbed his eyes. He still looked shaky on his feet. “I think I’ll take you up on that,” he said, and went in search of caffeine.

The nurse hooked up another IV. “He’s a sweetheart,” she told Caroline. “He’s been here all night, holding your hand, talking to you. I think I even heard him singing.”

“He fell asleep on my lap,” Caroline said. What was the nurse’s name? Barbara? Brenda?

The nurse laughed. “The second one,” she said. “It’s Brenda.”

“Did I say that out loud?”

Brenda laughed again. “You did. I’ll pretend it was the anesthesia.”

Caroline wasn’t about to tell her that being occasionally scatterbrained was part of her charm. Brenda would probably figure that out after she hit the call button seven or eight times.

She continued to work, checking the machines, fluffing Caroline’s pillow. “My daughter Chloe lives in your district. She thinks you’re the best representative she’s ever had.” Brenda injected the IV with another dose of morphine. At least, Caroline hoped it was morphine. Her surgeon had promised her morphine. She smoothed the blanket covering Caroline’s feet and looked up at her. “You did a brave thing today.”

Caroline bit her tongue, not wanting to tell the woman that she thought she was a complete idiot for doing it, especially with two young children who needed her. “Whatever you say,” she mumbled.

Brenda checked the IV a final time. “Chloe met you at a town hall once and told me you don’t like it when people tell you nice things about yourself.” She turned when Jack walked back into the room, Styrofoam cup in hand. “You’d better hold on to him,” she whispered, putting a reassuring hand on Caroline’s good shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you.” Caroline smiled at her as Jack sat down beside the bed.

She was extremely lucky. For whatever reason, the gunman had not chosen a large caliber weapon. He’d armed himself with a plinking gun, a .22 Smith and Wesson, but still got off a shot that fractured her humerus.

Christine had been correct. The bullet nicked her brachial artery. She lost a massive amount of blood and needed a transfusion during surgery. Her surgeon removed a few bone fragments but observed no other major damage. He was confident she’d make a full recovery with some rehab, although he warned her she’d probably have a small scar. He stuck around to speak with her in person, even though she’d been asleep for hours. Caroline wondered if he would have extended the same courtesy to someone who wasn’t a member of Congress.

Jack stroked her hand. “So, how are you feeling?”

“Better, now that I’ve heard what the surgeon had to say. And now that he’s given me permission to use my voice.”

He smiled. “I was being overprotective, I guess. I still want you to mostly listen to me, though.”

Caroline didn’t have enough energy to argue with him. “Fine.”

“Marguerite and Sophie are with the Sullivans at your house. They’ll be here first thing in the morning. I called Christine while the nurse was giving you more meds.”

She didn’t want to start crying. There would be plenty of time for that later. “Are they okay?”

“They want to see you. They tried to stick around until you woke up. It took some effort to convince Christine that they all should go home and get some sleep.”

“I’ll bet.”

“As you might expect, I didn’t touch that one. It was all Tom.”

Caroline laughed softly, then winced.

Jack rubbed her good shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I won’t make any jokes.”

“How is that different from the way you usually are?”

“I’m glad to see the aftereffects of surgery have not dampened your wit,” he said, but his voice had an unmistakable edge.

“Is everyone really okay?”

He tucked her hair behind her ear. He seemed obsessed with having constant physical contact with her. She wasn’t about to complain about it, when it comforted her so effectively. It took him a moment to speak.

“It was not a fun evening. But Tom kept the girls reasonably calm. I did my best too. From what he told me, their flight was pretty rough, even though I assured him that your injuries weren’t life threatening.”

“Flight?”

“Tom took my jet up to Massena. He brought your children home from camp.”

Did he mention a
jet
? Privately owned aircraft had never come up in any of their conversations before. She must have misheard him. Probably the morphine. “You did that for them?”

Jack gave her a shy smile. “Your daughters are very important to me.”

They wouldn’t be the only ones affected by her injury. Caroline knew to ask about the usual suspects. Kathleen would be fine but everyone else was a question mark. “What about Chrissy? And Jen?”

He took a very long sip of coffee. “Katie and I had to convince her to change her dress and clean herself up a little before she saw the girls. She was not in a good place. Neither was Jen. You’ll probably need to hug them or something when they get here tomorrow morning.”

It didn’t hurt to ask. “Katie’s okay?”

He gripped the cup a little tighter. “She’ll be fine. Held most of us together, as I’m sure you expected. You had a lot of people checking on your condition, and she herded them all around since Jen was a little shaky.”

Caroline took a good look at him. His face was drawn and pale, almost gray. Had anyone checked on him? “How are
you
doing?” she asked.

Jack set the cup down and closed his eyes. It was a while before he opened them again. She could have sworn she saw his lip tremble. He turned away from her and cleared his throat before reaching over to squeeze her fingers.

“I am very, very glad to be here with you right now,” he said softly. He slid her hand in between both of his, careful to avoid the IV needle. “And I’m not going to waste this opportunity while I have it.”

“You don’t have to worry. I’m literally not going anywhere. I don’t have any clothes here and I think they’d notice me trying to escape.”

Jack didn’t laugh at her cheap attempt at humor. “Do you know why I was so mad at you about what you said about me during the campaign?”

He didn’t want to waste too much time with small talk, did he? Caroline leaned back into the fluffed up pillow on her hospital bed. She didn’t want to talk about that speech. Not now, not ever. “Jack-” 

“Don’t, Caroline. I know what you’re going to say. I really have forgiven you for giving that speech. I mean it. And I know you hate talking about it. But I realized a while ago that it struck a nerve with me because it was grounded in truth.”

She glared at him. “It wasn’t the truth and you know it.”

“You know how many women I’ve been with. How many I’ve used. You know the bad decisions I’ve made, the terrible things I’ve done to make money, get ahead, close the deal, get laid. You know how I’ve manipulated people. And you know that deep down inside, I’m an entitled asshole who thinks he can get whatever he wants, whenever he wants. That’s precisely why I ran for Congress. I wanted the power. I wanted the attention. I wanted everything that came along with it, so I could take that next step.”

“That’s not the real you,” she said.

“The hell it isn’t. You as much told me the same thing over the course of the last week, and you were right.”

“I’ve said a lot of awful things to you recently. Things I shouldn’t have said. You’re not that man.”

“Who am I, then?”

“That’s not the way you are with me.”

He brushed her hair away from her forehead. “Why do you think that is?”

If she could answer that question, maybe their entire blowup could have been avoided. “I don’t know.”

“How do you know I’m not going to use you like I’ve used everybody else?”

“Because I trust you,” Caroline said. “And I love you. And I know you love me. I should have given you a chance to explain things better.”

“You still love me?” Jack asked in amazement. “After everything I’ve done? Even knowing who I really am?”

“Just because I was in severe pain earlier today doesn’t mean I wasn’t telling you the truth.”

“Do you know how terrified I was? How scared I was of losing you?”

He didn’t need to be so melodramatic. “It wasn’t
that
bad.”

“It was. All I could think was that something horrific had happened and I might never get the chance to make things up to you, to prove my love and tell you how sorry I was, that you’d – that your last memories of me would be of how I’d hurt you so much that you hated me for it.”

Completely, over the top melodramatic. “I don’t hate you, Jack.”

“Maybe not, but I still hurt you terribly. I know that. And I hate myself for it.”

“Please don’t feel that way. I said so many rotten things to you and you didn’t deserve any of them.”

“I shouldn’t have accused you of running away.”

Caroline blinked her eyes furiously. “You were right,” she whispered. “I am. Or I was.”

“You wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t lied to you.”

“I would have found some excuse to do it eventually.”

“Caroline, I mean it. I shouldn’t have said it.”

“Why do you think I said all those things to you?”

Jack looked down at her hand and squeezed it again. She should have known he wouldn’t want to answer that question.

“You know why.” She sniffled loudly. “I was pushing you away. Protecting myself. Last year was hard, Jack.” Her voice shook as she said his name, and she paused to compose herself. Sometimes the memories were still too much. “Really hard. I still don’t know how I got through it. I wouldn’t have had the strength to do it if I didn’t know that I had to do it for Mo and Feef. Or if everyone hadn’t been there to help me. The thought of going through something like that again…it makes me so frightened. I don’t think I could bear it.”

“You’d rather be alone and miserable?”

“I don’t know.”

“You deserve to be happy. Or
with
someone and miserable, instead of alone and miserable.”

“Would that
someone
be you?”

Jack grinned at her, a very welcome sight. “Baby, if you give me the chance I’ll make you the most miserable woman in the world.”

Caroline laughed. “You promised not to make any jokes.”

“I’m being serious. I’m a pain in the ass.”

“I know. You wouldn’t let me push you away.”

“I did my best to coerce you into doing it. I should never have lied to you.” He rubbed his eyes. “Do you know why I didn’t tell you about the governor’s race? I should have. I know that. Every logical bone in my body told me that. There were so many times when I opened my mouth intending to tell you, and then stopped because I was afraid of how you’d react. You’d finally started opening up to me, and I thought, maybe I can earn this woman’s love. Maybe you’d want to be with me, maybe we could have something. I thought if I told you the truth, I’d ruin what we had. That you’d pull away and never be willing to see if we could make a relationship work. I know it was selfish. I’m sorry. I was scared of losing you before I even had you, and that wasn’t fair. I should have told you and dealt with the consequences.”

“You’re right. You should have told me.” Caroline appreciated his apology but her feelings still hurt. They couldn’t just sweep everything under the rug. “I don’t know if we can move forward if you don’t trust me enough to be honest with me.”

“I’ve learned my lesson. I have no good excuse for not telling you. I’ve told you almost everything else about me. It’s a mistake I won’t repeat.”

“How do I know that’s true?”

“Look at me. Do you think I’m lying?”

Caroline held his gaze for as long as she could, searching for any sign of deception and finding none. He wasn’t a perfect man. Their relationship would probably never be without its difficulties. They might have to work harder than they wanted to ensure their mutual stability. But all their disagreements didn’t seem important anymore. Her path forward was with him.