Incidental Contact (Those Devilish De Marco Men) (33 page)

“Amy said for you guys to drive safe. Just got her text. She wanted me to tell you Maze is picking her and your grandmother up. They’ll meet you at the hospital. Good luck, guys.”

“Thanks, Kevin.”

I fucking love her. All heart and common sense.
He trusted Maze to get them to the hospital safely, and he had enough to worry about. And she knew all that.

Colton disconnected the call, but stared at the screen. “Seventeen minutes, forty-six seconds. Goddamn, Eric. I doubt I could make it here that fast on dry pavement.”

Eric barely heard Colton, intent now on catching the ambulance.

Lila might die.

Lila, who’d forgiven his cutting remarks when she and Colton first hooked up, even though he’d never apologized. Lila, who always set a place for him at her table with a smile.

Colton’s baby could die.

He saw a tiny casket in his mind. Colton breaking down. Cynda crying. He looked around in his vision, but he couldn’t see Lila anywhere. Just grave markers. Those of his father, his mother, and his sister. His grandparents. Jonah stood beside Sarah’s grave, saying over and over, “Mom, where’s Lila? Where’d she go?”

The ambulance made a right turn. Eric steeled himself to navigate the cloverleaf that descended to the four-lane that would take them to the turn-off for the hospital, but he spied the dark grit littering the snowy surface with a sense of relief that made his arms weak. The sand trucks had been through here.

This road led past Berry Field, the ball park where Jonah played his games. The outfield wall was a slash of green, vivid against the blanketing white.

He remembered Lila being lifted off her feet by fifteen triumphant boys, waving the trophy that now decorated Colton’s mantle. How many oil and filter changes ago had that been? Across the highway, the hamburger joint where Amy sometimes joined them after Jonah’s games was shuttered.

The ambulance took a left. Eric watched the converted van’s rear tires spin on the icy downhill slope. They bounced over the curb, but the driver corrected, gunning the vehicle onto the road fronting the hospital. Eric’s bumper and that of the ambulance nearly touched. Moments later, the ambulance turned right.

Then he saw the big red letters and arrow pointing to the emergency entrance materialize out of the smothering cocoon of white.

Eric shook his head to break the trance stress had woven around him. The long slope leading to the emergency entrance had been heavily doused with sand and salt. Pulling up beneath the cover sheltering the emergency room entrance, he braked to a stop. Colton jumped out, dashing toward the back of the ambulance. Eric had to wait for the ambulance to pull through the one-way drive before he could park his truck, so he watched the attendants swarm out of the hospital to remove her stretcher. Lila’s face was as white as the sheet draped over her body. Bags swung from poles mounted over her head. One bag held blood. Or it had at one time. The bag was over half empty.

“Take this the right way, baby mama, but I’m buying Jonah that four-wheeler. Call it payback,” he vowed, dropping his forehead onto the damp leather covering his steering wheel.

* * * *

E
ric stared in amazement at Colton’s hands. Inside the plastic thing Cynda called an isolette, his niece barely filled his baby brother’s palm. Seven weeks premature, the infant was barely the length of Amy’s foot. Smaller than the last bass Jonah had caught. Dark hair swirled on her tiny head. Her blue eyes seemed fixed on him.

Someone so small was going to take a lot of looking out for. He’d bet Carah Mia De Marco would be the best-protected little girl in the county. In the whole damn state.

“Hello, beautiful Carah.” Cynda whispered as if in church. She slid her arms around Jonah, resting her chin on the teen’s shoulder. “I’ve wanted to hold you for so long. Now I can see you, but I can’t get my hands on you.” Eric didn’t have to look to know tears spilled down her cheeks. She’d been crying since she’d come through the revolving door of the Emergency Room and Eric had to tell her Lila was in critical condition.

The newborn unfurled her fist. Eric studied his niece’s incomprehensibly tiny fingers with awe, watching her grasp her father’s thumb. Her heels hung over the edge of Colton’s outstretched fingers. The baby’s foot was no longer than his brother’s thumbnail.

A nurse approached Colton. He laid Carah down. Her little mouth opened in protest. Her face turned red, then her chest, then her tummy, then her tiny feet. Eric’s heart felt that silent cry.

"Hey, look, it’s Miss Teddy Bear Pants. From the Emergency Room,” Jonah said.

Looking in the direction Jonah had turned, Eric blinked at the pink cotton shirt, decorated with balloons and bows. He recognized the nurse. They’d dated. Felt like another lifetime. “Hey, Sandy.”

“Can you find out about Lila?” Jonah asked eagerly. The nurse reached to brush his hair out of his eyes, but Jonah jerked away. “Only Lila does that.”

Eric felt the band constricting his chest tighten a couple of notches.

Sandy didn’t seem offended. “Let me call the operating room and ask if Ms. Walker’s out of surgery. There’s a waiting room just down the hall. It’ll be a while before we can let your brother go in to see the baby again. We need to run all kinds of tests on her. She sure is a pretty thing.”

“Thanks, Sandy.” Puzzled, he kept trying to figure out where the hell Jonah saw teddy bears on the woman’s scrubs.
Stress is making all of us a little nuts.

“Jonah, let’s go find a drink machine,” Dan suggested. Eric had a feeling Jonah was about to get one of Dan’s talks on being a man.

But that means Dan thinks—

“We’ll find that waiting room.” Eric took Cynda’s hand. Expectant faces lifted, only to darken in disappointment when they entered the windowless room. Cynda staked claim on a corner with enough empty seats for everyone.

“This is my fault.” Discarding her purse, the young woman plopped into a chair, dropping her face into her hands.

Eric rubbed a circle between her shoulder blades. “Don’t be silly, Cyn. How could this possibly be your fault?”

She’d think differently once she found out about the deer.

“Her appointments kept falling on days when the offices closed for snow. Every time she’d reschedule, it’d snow again. I should’ve dragged her ass to their office and made them work her in as soon as the roads cleared.”

“Stop it.” Every head in the room swiveled toward Colton. His tall frame filled the doorway. Some of the color had come back into his face. Fisting the paper at his shoulder, Colton ripped off his sterile gown. “Stop the blame game. She’s been conflicted all along about havin’ this baby. She could’ve demanded the doctor’s office work her in and she had the most to lose by not doing that. If she dies,”—he slammed the gown into a trash bin and yanked the matching cap from his head—“if she doesn’t make it, I’m gonna blame Lila for that. Not you, Cyn. Not some nurse. Not a doctor who barely knows her name. Lila. She’s so big on responsibility, but she blew this one. If she didn’t want this baby, it’s too damn bad now. She’s a mother again.”

Colton turned back to the hallway, grabbing a passing nurse by the arm. “I want that band around my daughter’s wrist changed. Her name is Carah Mia De Marco,
not
Baby Girl Walker. When they talk to my daughter,”—Colton’s voice cracked—“I want them to use her name. She’s all alone in there and she’s fighting for her life. Use her name.”

Propping his forearms on his knees, Eric blinked until the pattern in the carpet between his boots didn’t waver. His brother crashed into a chair across from Eric. The hushed elevator music didn’t do much to mask the sound of crying babies. Jerking forward, Colton grabbed Cynda’s hand in one of his. He grasped Eric’s knee with the other.

“Sarah hated the way Dad expected her to handle everything in that big house. Did she get pregnant on purpose? I don’t know, but I do know she was happy to shake the red clay off her shoes. Sarah wanted out of here. She loved living in LA. Cut yourself a break, Eric. I had no idea you were still grindin’ on that. Dad was hardest on you because you were always in trouble at school and Uncle Oliver was such a dick whenever he made Dad come to the school. A solar eclipse woulda been your fault. Let it go, brother.”

Eric blinked. For Colton, that was a long speech.

“I love you E,” Cynda whispered. “I’m sorry you’re mad about the orchards. I want people to know about the variety your grandpa created. It’s special to me, like this family.” She plucked her purse from the floor at her feet. He thought she was getting change for the drink machines, but when she held out her palm, he saw two small silver rings. “These bands go with the ring you chose. Daniel says they were your Grandma Chapman’s original wedding rings. The set should stay together.”

“The stone’s blue,” Eric argued, feeling like the world’s biggest jerk. He darted a look at Colton, now slouched in the chair opposite his, but his brother’s eyes were closed. “It can’t be a wedding set.”

Cynda picked up one of the bands, turning it in her fingers so the engraved scrolls on the sides caught the light. “See how the stones go all the way around? And the pretty design on the outside edge?” Reaching for his hand, she turned it, dropping them into his palm. “Means the rings can’t be resized. I guess you’ll just have to find a midget you can beg to wear ‘em. Or have a jeweler make them into earrings. You’d look kinda cute in sapphire and platinum hoops.” She folded his fingers over the rings.

“Subtle. Very subtle, Cynda.” Guilt flushed through him. “What about you, Colton?”

His brother slouched down in his chair. He didn’t bother to open his eyes. “I don’t care, E. Fuck the camp. Fuck the peaches. Fuck Grandmother’s jewelry. None of it’s worth fightin’ over. If those peaches make Cynda happy and she needs me to, I’ll help pick ‘em. I’ll bitch every breath, but I’ll do it. Whatever you decide to do with the camp, you have my blessing. My help if you need it. For what it’s worth, I think you’d rock a pair of hoop earrings, too.” Colton’s lips twitched into a brief smile, just before the grooves resettled around his mouth. “Unless you happen to find your balls.” Colton cocked a brow.

The people who know your fuck-ups and still love you are the ones who really love you. And please, God, let Lila and Carah be okay
. Eric would leave town before he’d stand by and watch sweet-natured Colton become bitter like Rafe.

You mean, like Sarah did?

Unbidden, another memory of his father surfaced. Rafe was seated at the far end of the kitchen table, in the chair that faced the back door. The only light in the room came from the hood above the stove. Eric couldn’t see his dad’s face. His head was bowed. Rough fingers made tracks through dark hair, heavily laced with silver.

Dan’s taunt about Eric’s women and oil filters came back to him. Did the right woman filter out a man’s impurities? All he had to do to see the truth of that was look at his brothers—or his father. Unfiltered without Cammie, Rafe had just been going through the motions. As the sorrow, the sediment, built up, Rafe’s engine—his heart—had stopped working right, long before it actually seized.

“How’s Lila? And the baby?”

He lifted his head to see Grams coming through the door. Amy held her elbow. Her hair had that chainsaw-styled look again. Her neon-orange sweatshirt bloused past her hips. Her jeans were ragged at the bottom and sopping wet and she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Carah Mia weighs four pounds, two ounces. We don’t know about Lila yet,” Cynda answered, getting to her feet. “She’s in surgery.”

Grams bent to hug Colton, then turned to grip Eric’s clenched hands, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Amy. Something kicking inside his chest made talking impossible. Eric pulled her onto his lap and buried his face in her neck. Her hands slid to the back of his neck, and some of his dread seemed to ease.

An hour crawled by. Then two. The drink machines were nearly empty and the selection Dan bought left a lot to be desired. Tea from a can was just about the nastiest thing Eric ever tasted. He emptied his bag of chips and balled the bag, firing it at the wastebasket underneath the television in back of the room.

“Mr. De Marco?”

Eric jerked around at the sound of the masculine voice. A doctor, clad in green scrubs, stood in the door to the waiting room, sliding a paper hat off his head. He grabbed Amy’s hand and the group hurried into the hall behind Colton.

The doctor nodded, but he didn’t smile. Eric’s gut clenched. Amy’s fingers tightened on his. “Mrs. Walker is in Recovery. We’ll be running tests on her liver and her brain. It’s too soon for me to tell you she’s out of the woods, but one thing’s for sure.”

Eric went rigid, waiting for the blow.

“If she’d gotten on my table five minutes later,”—the surgeon held out his hands and shrugged—“we’d be having a different talk. We’ll move her into Intensive Care in about an hour. You can see her then.”

He didn’t know what to expect when Colton suddenly spun.

Certainly not a hug.

Slapping Colton’s back awkwardly, Eric met warm brown eyes, ripe with tears, over his brother’s shoulder, and a smile he knew without a doubt he wanted to see every morning for the rest of his life.

She grabbed his hand when Colton stumbled back into the waiting room. “Show me this miracle baby, Uncle Eric.”

Amy scrutinized the tiny infant with a furrowed brow. A nurse was changing Carah’s diaper, deftly dodging wires and IV tubing, but Eric thought he’d rather chop down a whole orchard than attempt that task. Poor Colton.

“Wow. She’s... very... small. A teensy, tiny miracle..” A moment passed. Then another. “She makes me want”—Eric’s heart nearly stopped—“to have my girlie bits sewn shut. I’ll be terrified to touch her till she’s like, eight.”

The idea that had eluded him the day he’d tickled her with the feather duster came crashing into his brain, fully-formed. Every misstep, every fuck-up, every decision, good or bad, had positioned him to collide with Amy. Nothing between them had ever been incidental contact. She was fucking perfect.