Everything in Between (33 page)

“The baby is fine,” Chip assured her. “The heartbeat is strong and the baby is in a good position. You’re a tank, remember?”

“It’s not the baby.”

“Then, what—”

“It’s you.” She rested her hand on his right thigh.

“I’m fine. What’s a few more railroad tracks in this thing? We match now. You had a severe break in your right femur. It was repaired with titanium screws. You’ve got almost as much metal in your leg as I have in mine.”

“It’s not that, either,” she wept. “I was so afraid to tell you that I loved you, Chip, because I was sure that I would lose you, just like I lost Colin. I won’t make that mistake again. I love you, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you know it, every single day.”

He sat beside her, gently embracing her. “I begged God and all his angels, even Colin, to help me get you out of that building. When I heard you call me, I knew that God answered my prayer. I should have been a little greedier. I got you out, but then I lost you anyway. For seven minutes.

“You were right, you know. I once told you that I didn’t believe a heart could break, but mine did when they couldn’t revive you. You were gone for seven minutes. That’s seven minutes of pure hell I don’t ever want to live again. I felt as if everything that ever mattered to me had vanished. You give my life its beautiful color and joyful noise. You give it meaning and value.”

“You have always been someone I could depend on,” Zae said. “You are the place of comfort and contentment I’ve wanted for so long. All Colin ever wanted was for me to be happy. And I think he knows that you are my happiness. We have his blessing.”

“So when can we get married?”

“I’m free right now, actually.”

He kissed the top of her head, then her temple and her cheek. “Thank you. Thank you, you beautiful, stubborn, smart, obnoxious, precious, nightmare of a dream come true!”

A nurse drew back the curtain and smiled. “You’re awake! Welcome back to the world, sleepyhead.”

Chip got off the bed and gave the nurse room to check Zae’s vitals. Which wasn’t easy.

“He rang for you a good ten minutes ago,” Zae exaggerated. “What if I was in cardiac arrest? Or bleeding from my eyeballs? What the hell were you doing that was more important than coming in here to make sure I hadn’t rolled out of bed or started choking on my own vomit?”

From his chair, Chip closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer of thanks before calling the twins and Gian and Cinder. Zae had returned to him, and from the sound of her, she was just as good as ever. Or better…

* * *

Zae peeped through the porthole window of one of the hospital chapel doors. Eve and Dawn, her stalwart maids of honor, stood at the humble wooden alter. Zae had allowed her daughters to choose their own dresses for the ceremony. Dawn, as was her preference, wore white. The white rosebuds in her chignon matched her cocktail-length halter dress. Eve wore black. Her only ornamentation, a pair of chocolate diamond earrings given to her by Cory for Christmas, perfectly complemented her off-the-shoulder cashmere sweater, wool pencil skirt and stockings. Eve clutched a trio of white tulips while Dawn carried three purple tulips so dark they looked black.

Zae shifted her gaze to the groom’s side of the alter. Cory, a bit of a clothes horse, looked sharp in a gray suit. Zae grinned at the sight of Sionne. His jacket was the size of a car cover, and he’d managed to find a pair of size 23 wingtips. The unruly mane of long black hair of which he was so proud had been tamed and pulled into a busy ponytail that resembled an electrified Persian hanging from the back of his head.

Gian and Cinder, CJ, Hirsch Sheppard, Braeden and select faculty from Missouri University occupied Zae’s half of the tiny chapel. Zae narrowed her eyes at Chip’s half of the chapel, where hospital staff Zae hadn’t pissed off sat with Sheng Li students and instructors. Chip’s mother sat in the front pew in a stylish blue suit that made the most of her blue eyes and attractive legs. The elder Mrs. Kish had been gracious and pleasant toward Zae since her arrival the day before the hastily planned wedding, but Zae wasn’t about to let her guard down. Particularly after learning that Mrs. Kish was a retired English teacher, a fact Chip had chosen not to disclose.

“I didn’t want you to think I was trying to marry my mother,” he’d told her.

“Since you didn’t tell me, that’s exactly what I think,” Zae had argued.

The debate had been settled under covers and behind the drawn curtains surrounding Zae’s hospital bed. Mrs. Kish had stumbled upon them, and there couldn’t have been a clearer illustration of the different roles played by the most important women in Chip’s life.

Zae was in her eighth day at the hospital, her discharge postponed because of a blood clot in her injured leg that required treatment and careful observation. Zae’s eagerness to go home took the form of constant abuse heaped at the nursing staff (“What do you people do with all the blood you take from me every day? Do you drink it?”), food service (“How do you expect people to heal when you’re feeding them cold food with no taste?”), housekeeping (“Does the hospital pay you extra for stirring up clouds of dust that make patients sicker?”), and her doctors (“You aren’t examining me until you’re old enough to shave, Doogie.”).

Cinder’s suggestion for Chip and Zae to marry in the hospital chapel had given Zae something to do other than commit acts of random verbal abuse against hospital personnel. Within the next couple of days, blood tests had been taken, a license was purchased, and the rector of Zae’s own church had agreed to perform the ceremony.

As Zae stood beside Chip outside the chapel, on the verge of becoming his wife, uncertainty flared within her. Her modest bouquet of blood-red tulips clutched in her hand, she stared up at Chip, her heart in her throat.

“What’s up?” he asked.

His calm should have settled her. He was painfully beautiful in a dark grey suit that beautifully matched the pale champagne of her gown. He’d cut his hair for the occasion, which made him look less boyish, except when he smiled.

“What if the blood clot in my leg dislodges and goes to my lung and kills me?” she said in a rush.

“Let’s hope you get to say ‘I do’ before it does,” he replied.

“What if it breaks loose later tonight? I’ll make you a widower on the first day of our married life.”

“It won’t,” he said.

“It could.”

“It
won’t
.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” He ran his hands over her bare shoulders. She’d chosen a strapless gown with an empire bodice to accommodate the dressing on her dislocated shoulder, and to elegantly hide her leg cast and growing belly bump. To Chip, she was a vision of pure beauty.

“What if it goes to my brain when I’m in labor, and I have a stroke and die?”

“Then I’ll raise our baby and tell him every day how much I loved his mother.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Then don’t.”

“I can’t control the future,” Zae fretted. “Anything can happen.”

“Then there’s no point worrying about it, is there?” Chip smiled.

“I can’t believe I walked right into that.”

“Into what?” CJ and one of the keyboard players from Del Brown’s began playing “My One and Only Love,” the song they had chosen for their entrance. Chip took Zae’s crutches and leaned them against the wall. He hoisted her up in his arms to carry her down the aisle.

“Into a crapload of common sense.”

“See? I’m good for something, professor.”

Her good arm wrapped around his neck, she kissed him. “You’re good for
me
, soldier.”

“Anything can happen at any time, love,” Chip told her. “But life goes on, no matter what. All we can do is make the best of the time we have, and love the people we love as best we can. In another minute or so, I’m going to stand before you and God and all our family and friends, and I’m going to pledge to love you with all my heart until the day He sees fit to take me from you. In sickness and in health, in poverty and wealth, in good times and bad, through death, through birth, and everything in between, I’m yours.” He touched his forehead to hers and nuzzled her nose. “I am yours, professor.”

Tears brimming over her lower lashes, Zae asked, “Were those your words or someone else’s?”

“That was all me.”

“It was beautiful.”

“So are you.”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“You’re something else.” He chuckled.

“So I’ve been told.”

The door swung open and the music quieted, their cue to enter. “Are you ready to make this corn-fed Tennessee boy the happiest man alive?” he whispered.

“I thought I’d already done that,” Zae said.

“Are you ready to be my wife and not just my baby mama,” he asked flatly.

“Absolutely!” Zae squealed. “Giddyup, soldier!”

With everything he ever wanted in his arms, Chip carried Zae to the altar to join his life to hers—before she could throw another worst-case scenario at him.