Calling Kupid (Kupid's Cove Book 1) (23 page)

“I couldn’t find a traditional engagement ring on short notice, so I hope you don’t mind that I’m proposing today with the promise of any ring you want when we get back home. I chose this one because of the words burned into the wood.”

He turned the ring so I could see the black script inside.

“It says, ‘O ku'u aloha no 'oe’. In Hawaiian, that means ‘You are indeed my love.’ It was sitting there amongst all these other rings, none of which were inscribed, and I knew it was a message from Him that now is our time, because you are, indeed, my love. Nothing was more obvious to me than walking into your office and having all those feelings of discord and hopelessness disappear when I saw your face. That was all I needed to know, that one day I would marry you. I could follow a more traditional path to engagement, but the end result would be me on bended knee begging you to marry me, and make life worth living. So, instead, here in this beautiful paradise, I’m asking you to be my wife. To be the other half of my heart, so I can continue to fix yours the way God intended.”

The sound of the ocean and the wind blowing through the trees above us disappeared with the words he spoke. I couldn’t speak, the things he said affecting me in such a way all I could do was nod yes. I sucked up air and lost the tears that were threatening to fall when he stood.

“Is that a ‘Yes, I will marry you Gideon Armstrong’?’” he asked, somewhat jokingly.

I nodded again, swiping at a tear that was running down my face. I took his hand and held it to my chest. “Do you feel that?”

He cocked his head. “Feel what?”

“My heartbeat. For the first time in months, it’s beating like a normal person’s heart beats, strong, even, and for you. I don’t have answers for any of the other questions in our lives, but I have the answer to this one. Yes, I will marry you, Gideon Armstrong.”

His eyes lit up when he heard my answer and he slid the ring onto my finger, the cool wood smooth against my skin. I looked down at my hand and he pulled me against him.

“I love you so much, Katie Penelope Kupid,” he whispered, his teeth capturing my earlobe for just a moment when we heard clapping.

I turned to look down the beach and walking towards us was a man dressed in island clothing, his cotton pants whipping around his legs as he approached.

“Congratulations, Strong,” he shouted.

Gideon pushed me behind him instinctively. “Graham? What are you doing here?” Gideon asked when the man stopped a few feet from us.

I looked past him towards where Thaddeus should be, but saw nothing except empty sand.

“Your paid muscle is taking a nap. Don’t worry, I didn’t hurt him; he’s not whom I’m after,” Graham spat at Gideon.

“Who are you after, Graham?” Gideon asked, his tone of voice steely cold.

“You haven’t figured it out yet? I told you I was coming for you. Did you think you could escape me by leaving the mainland? I find humor in the whole thing. You were telling me exactly what I wanted to know every time you called in.”

Gideon waved his hand in front of him, while pushing me even further behind him with the other.

“Why do you want to hurt me? I’ve done nothing but treat you like family. Katie has done absolutely nothing to you, yet you’ve put her in danger. If it’s money you want, why didn’t you just ask?”

“Oh, you are a misguided man, aren’t you Strong?”

“Inciting terror is not a way to sit across the table and come to an agreement, Graham.”

The man pulled a gun from his pocket and aimed it at Gideon. My heart froze and I wanted to do something, anything, to keep him safe. My hand snaked towards Gideon’s pocket where I knew his revolver was.

Graham waved the gun at Gideon. “Don’t even think about getting the gun from his pocket, Katie.”

I lowered my hands at his words and watched Gideon’s Adam’s apple bob up and down.

“I don’t want to sit across the table from you, Strong. I want to take your table and make it mine, the way it should be!”

Gideon put his hands up slowly. “Graham, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I will listen, just put the gun down. I mean you no harm, never have. I’ve loved you like a brother.”

“You are my brother!” the man shouted, waving the gun around. “Only you got to live the charmed life I was denied!” He jabbed his finger in his chest while aiming the gun at us.

“Whoa, dude, I’m an only child.”

Graham shook his head vehemently. “No, you were raised as an only child; do you understand there is a difference?” He was shouting, moving towards us threateningly.

Gideon took a step back, forcing me to take a step back as well. “So you’re claiming that we share a father?”

“I’m not claiming anything. I have proof,” he said menacingly, the gun barely wavering in his hand.

“Your father slept with my mother when you were two years old. I was the result of that illicit affair that spanned over three years. You’re always bragging about your high and mighty Mormon parents, and you had no clue just what your father really was.”

“What does killing me now solve?” Gideon asked, trying to move towards the left where the trees would offer shelter.

“If you’re dead I can come forward as the heir to the Armstrong dynasty. I’ll be rich and finally living the life I was denied as a child. While you were eating steak, my mother couldn’t afford bread. While you were attending the finest schools money could buy, I was stuck in the inner city of Chicago trying to survive. It looks like the tables have finally turned.”

Gideon was shaking his head no. “You don’t understand, Graham. My parents weren’t rich. I went to private school, but that was because I had a scholarship. My father was a pharmacist and my mother was a secretary for the hospital. The only thing my parents owned was the pharmacy in Snowberry.”

The gun wavered for a just a second, but he recovered quickly. “It really doesn’t matter, does it? Whether you own all the other properties or they did, now they will be mine. As next of kin the rights to your business would automatically go to me.”

I couldn’t let this go on any longer. I stepped to the side of Gideon. “That’s not entirely true, Graham.” My voice was shaking, which gave my confident tone a weak quality, but I plowed on. “If you can prove your father was Gideon Armstrong Sr. you are legally entitled to half of the sale from the pharmacy, but that’s all. The only way you’re entitled to any part of Gideon’s business holdings is if he included you in the will.”

He turned the gun on me. “Shut up, I didn’t ask for your opinion!”

I took a step back and saw a shadow to my right. I heard yelling, but before I could decipher the words, I saw the flash of a muzzle, felt a burning pain in my neck, and the light of day dissolved into the dark of night.

Gideon

Everything was a blur as Thaddeus tackled Graham. The deafening sound of the gun going off and the bullet whizzing past my ear spun me around. Katie crumpled to the ground in a heap just as my legs went out from under me.

Thaddeus was attempting to subdue Graham and yelled at me, “Gideon, grab his feet!”

My hand clamped down over Graham’s ankles, his thrashing making it difficult for Thaddeus to get the cuffs on him. Graham was still cussing and yelling about how I’ve ruined his life when Thaddeus slapped a pair of disposable cuffs on his ankles after cuffing his hands behind his back. He looked like a trussed up turkey, but was flopping around like a fish.

I let go of Graham and grabbed Katie, resting her head on my lap. She was bleeding from somewhere near her neck and out cold. I felt for a pulse and it was there, but I knew things were bad.

“You, son of a bitch! You shot her!” I yelled, grabbing Katie up into my arms. “I can’t believe you shot her!”

Thaddeus stood and pulled off his shirt, pressing it in a ball to the area below her collarbone. He laid her hand over it and pointed towards the resort. “Take her, now!”

I ran up the beach, her body limp in my arms, my mind a jumbled mess of confusion. The sand made it nearly impossible to run faster than a slow jog. She moaned and rolled her head towards me, her eyes fluttering open.

“Gideon,” she whispered, her voice weak and thready.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m going to help you. I’m going to fix this. I love you, Katie. You have to fight for me, okay? I’ll fix this, if you fight. Will you fight for us?”

“I love you, Gideon,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

I kissed her forehead, noticing how the shirt was soaked through with her blood. “When you’re afraid, trust in me. Remember that. You have to hang in there, baby.”

My feet hit the concrete and I ran, faster than I’ve ever run before. There was no ambulance in sight, but a taxi was idling at the roundabout for guest drop off.

“Help! We need a hospital!” I yelled as I approached.

The cab driver was out of the car and had the back door open for me before I finished the sentence. I could hear sirens coming, and knew Thaddeus had called it in, but I couldn’t chance losing her by waiting.

I dove into the car with her, cradling her on my lap and pressing the shirt to her chest in one motion. The taxi peeled away from the resort, turning left into town.

“The hospital is only a few miles from here,” he assured me, driving way too slow for my taste.

“Get us there, now!” I yelled at him. “Speed, I’ll pay any tickets.”

The car picked up speed as I kissed her forehead again, my fingers going to her neck to feel for a pulse. My heart sank when I felt it racing in a way I had never felt it before. It was beating so fast it surely couldn’t keep up that pace for very long. She was unconscious now and completely unresponsive, but I wasn’t sure if it was safe to give her a pill either.

“Come on, Katie. You can’t do this to me. You promised to fight, so fight!” I yelled, laying my lips on hers. Feeling her breath on my mine, I prayed until the car screeched to a halt at the emergency room.

The doors slid open and a nurse ran out, listening to the frantic driver. The back door opened and they took Katie from my arms, strapped her to a gurney an orderly had brought out, and ran with her.

I climbed out of the taxi and handed the driver two hundreds. “Thanks for getting us here, man.”

“I’ll keep her in my prayers. Ask for Maltrand when you need a ride. I will be here for you.”

I shook his hand then ran for the door. “Thanks, Maltrand. I’m Gideon, and that woman is Katie and she’s going be my wife.”

He gave me a thumbs up and I dashed in the door, stopping at the reception desk. “Where did they take the woman just brought in?”

The receptionist pointed towards a curtain and I ran for it. Unfortunately, I was stopped by the same orderly that brought the gurney earlier. “You can’t go in there, sir. They’re working on her.”

“You have to let me in there! She has a heart condition they need to know about!”

He pulled the curtain back, and the doctor motioned me in. “Do you have a medical history on her?” he asked as he listened to her heart and a nurse hooked up an IV.

“She had tetalogy of something. I’m not saying that right,” I said, feeling terrible for not remembering the name.

“Tetralogy of Fallot?” he asked and I nodded.

“Yes, that’s it. It was repaired, but now she has times when her heart races fast and she has to take a pill.” I pulled the bottle from my pocket and handed it to him. “She just started them, but they don’t seem to be working. Her doctor at Mayo thinks she may need more surgery.”

“She’s seen at Mayo?”

“We’re here on vacation from Minnesota. Her doctor’s name is Dr. Sawyer; that’s all I know. Shouldn’t you be treating the bullet wound?”

“I was just going to ask you about that. The wound is through and through, so while she’s bleeding from it, I’m more worried about her heart right now.”

“A crazy guy came after us on the beach. He got off a shot before my bodyguard took him down. You have to take care of her, please. She’s on Coumadin and has an artificial heart valve.”

He put a calming hand on my shoulder and handed the bottle to the nurse. “We’re going to give her some medication in her IV similar to what she takes for the arrhythmia. We have techniques to stop the bleeding when a patient is on blood thinners. Do you know what valve was replaced?”

I put my hand in my hair. “I can’t remember. Dammit!”

He squeezed my shoulder, “It’s okay. It’s been a rough day. If she had Tetralogy of Fallot, could it be the pulmonary valve?”

My heart leaped at the words. “Yes! That’s the valve. She said the pulmonary valve was too tight and they put in an artificial one.”

“Excellent. See, you’ve got this. Hopefully we can get the rhythm back to normal with the medication, but I’ve called in an electrophysiologist in case we can’t.”

“Electrophysiologist? What is that?” I asked, as the nurse came back in and injected something into the IV.

“He specializes in heart rhythms and treatment of them. If he’s concerned, he will contact Dr. Sawyer and they can work together to make sure Katie is treated appropriately. She’s going to be okay.”

He squeezed my shoulder the way a comforting father would do and I nodded, staring at the woman I love. “She has to be. She had just accepted my proposal right before this happened. She has to pull through this.”

“I promise you; she’s in good hands. You can help us by sitting with the nurse at the desk and giving us as much medical history as you can. Call anyone who can supplement your knowledge of her medical condition. We need as much information as we can get.”

He pushed me through the curtain and my mind went to Winifred. I pulled out my phone dialing the number I had stored in it before we left home. It rang three times before she answered.

“Hello?” Winifred greeted me.

I took a deep breath. “Winifred, it’s Gideon. There’s been an incident and Katie’s in the hospital.”

“What? Is she okay?” she asked frantically. I debated how much I wanted to tell her. Honesty felt like the best way to go.

“The doctor says she’s going to be okay. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to talk right now. They want as much information about her heart as they can get. I don’t know that much about her history growing up. Can you help the nurses with that if I give them the phone?”

“Yes. I’m her medical power of attorney. I have all her current medications and past medical history with me at all times.”

“Oh, thank God. They need all of that right now so they know how to treat her.”

“Gideon. Do I need to come out there?”

I paused and then looked towards the curtain where the doctor’s feet were moving around the bed. I felt tears pricking at my eyelids and I tried to fight them so she wouldn’t hear it in my voice.

“I think that would be a good idea. Get a flight and I’ll repay you for the airfare. I’ll text you the info once you hang up with the nurse. The hospital is only a few miles from the airport here.”

“Gideon, are you lying to me? Is she not going to make it?”

I could hear the tears in her voice and knew Katie would furious if she knew that I was upsetting her pregnant best friend. “They assured me she will be just fine, Winifred. I’m thinking about Katie here. She’s already worried to death about you being in Snowberry, pregnant, and worried about her. The threat has been eliminated, so we are free to come home now, but I’m not certain how long it will be until she can travel.”

“Flynn is already making reservations. Give me to the nurse and I’ll tell her the specifics, then we’ll be on our way.”

“Thanks, Freddie. I know having you here will help her recover that much faster.”

I handed the phone to the nurse and sank into a chair, putting my head in my hands.

She is safe in my hands, Gideon.

If that’s true she wouldn’t be lying in there!

You’re doubting me again. Remember what happened to Thomas?

Blessed are those who have not seen, but still believe.

Yes, for though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Your rod and your staff they comfort me.

I asked you to fix her heart. Did you do that?

I closed my eyes and let the memories of those last few precious moments we shared together on the beach encompass me. The image of me slipping the ring onto her finger was all I could see. I felt a smile slip into place. It was small, but it had hope behind it, lifting my lips upwards.

I believe I did fix her heart. At least the parts that told her she didn’t deserve to be loved and treasured. I’ve failed at fixing the rest of it.

What is the rest of it?

She’s lying in there barely alive and it’s my fault.

There are things that go on in your world that you do not see. She’s exactly where she needed to be when she needed to be there. I know you’re afraid, but…

I must trust in you.

I opened my eyes when the nurse cleared her throat. She handed me the phone, an encouraging smile on her face. “I’m going to take this to Dr. Gates. Your friend wanted me to remind you to text the information she needs.”

I took the phone from her outstretched hand and nodded, giving her a weak smile. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

She patted my shoulder on the way by, her hand warm on my skin. “Katie has the best doctors a girl can have. Did you know there’s a convention of cardiologists at the University of Maui this week? They’ve been seeing patients here and consulting on cases. She’s in the very best of hands.”

She ducked behind the curtain and I let out the breath I had been holding. Everything that happened the last year suddenly came into focus. Every hurdle we jumped over to get to Maui became clear. My ‘reason’ was Katie. Every single thing I’ve done in my life led me to sit in this chair. I felt the anxiety and fear fall away. In its place was pure, unadulterated understanding. I had done what He asked me to do. I had fixed her heart. Now He was holding up His end of the bargain. I leaned my head back on the wall and closed my eyes, a smile on my face. I was blind, but now I see.

Well played, Lord.