On Thin Ice (23 page)

Maggie smiled a forced smile. “Good. And I see Samantha found you.”

“Yeah. She brought you some clothes too.”

“She’s a sweetheart, she is.”

Harvey placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Malory here is going to go downstairs and get herself some breakfast,” he said with a nod in Malory’s direction and then turned his eyes to Maggie. “And I’m taking you to the hotel to get a shower and a nap.”

He’d made sure to make it a statement and not a request. Neither of them argued.

“The desk has your phone number, so they’ll call you if they need you to come back up. Okay?”

Malory nodded.

He put his arm around Maggie’s shoulders and they disappeared into the elevator.

Malory stood alone in the hallway as people in green scrubs and white coats rushed past her. Some had charts, some had tubes and bandages, others spoke in tongues that made no sense. Her eyes focused on the room she knew Christopher was in. Doctors and nurses moved in and out, all in a hurry, but no one came for her.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Malory had waited another two hours before she heeded her father’s advice on going to the cafeteria. She had hoped that if she stuck around, they would come to her and tell her she could go into Christopher’s room, but they hadn’t. Instead, they were too tight lipped to tell her anything—she wasn’t his wife or his mother.

She sat near the bank of windows, a cup of coffee between her hands and an untouched donut on a plate in front of her.

“This place gets you down doesn’t it?”

Malory turned to see a man seated beside her. She hadn’t seen him sit down.

His sipped at the cup that he held between his hands. “That was quite a hit he took, wasn’t it?”

Her eyes opened wide at his knowledge of what happened to Christopher, and it was then she remembered the man from the restaurant. His snow-white beard and his red hooded sweatshirt. His ocean-blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and smile that put her at ease.

“He’s had some setbacks, but they won’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Swelling. They seem to have it under control, but he has to be watched.”

“How do you know that?” Her voice rose in pitch.

“I see everything.” His sipped from his mug again. “It’s hard to sit here on Christmas Eve, isn’t it?”

“I’m not giving it much thought.”

“Well, you should.” He turned to her. “What is your Christmas wish?”

“Seriously, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir, but I’d just like to be left alone.” She pushed her plate away. The tension in her shoulders forced her to jerk them back.

“You always were the kind who wanted to be alone when she needed to think things through. But I know what’s in your heart, Malory.”

Her head snapped toward him.

He laughed and it rolled from his belly. “You don’t think you know me but you do. So, with that said, what is your wish this Christmas?”

Didn’t she feel better just having him there with her? What harm was there in saying what was in her heart? “I want him to wake up and tell me he loves me. I want him to tell me he still wants to marry me. I want him back.”

“You love him.”

“I always have. As far back as I can remember.”

He nodded and patted her hand. “I know, and he’s always felt the same. Have faith, my dear. You’ll be able to pull that forgotten cake out of the freezer and still celebrate. He’ll like that.” He raised a hand to her cheek and gave it a pat. “Everything will be okay. Merry Christmas.”

She stared at him, trying to discern what he could mean by his comment about the cake. She certainly hadn’t told anyone about that. And how could she be thinking of making love with Christopher when he was fighting to stay alive? Heat crept up her neck to her cheeks, and her white-haired visitor smiled. She looked into her mug and just breathed, and when she looked back up, he was gone. She looked around the cafeteria, and there was no sign of him. His mug still sat next to her and she picked it up. It had remnants of hot chocolate, but her donut was gone.

Malory spent some time in the chapel praying before she went back upstairs. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that, but it couldn’t hurt.

Her father sat just outside the door to the ICU, his head in his hands. Malory sat down next to him, and he lifted his head.

“Maggie’s in there with him now.”

“I heard he had some swelling.”

He nodded. “They told you, huh?”

“No.” She shook her head. When he looked at her quizzically, she waved the question aside. “It’s a long story.” The aches in her body subsided for just a moment when she thought of the man who knew the special cake she’d made for her night with Chris was still in the freezer. It baffled her that he could know that; speaking with him might have been an exhaustion-induced hallucination.

“When she comes out, you can go in and spend some time with him.”

Malory nodded. That was what she wanted more than anything. She wanted to spend forever with him, but that certainly didn’t seem to be the way of it.

The doors opened and Maggie slowly walked out, rubbing her eyes. Dark circles shadowed them, and her skin was pale. Malory had never seen her so worn down. Both Malory and Harvey stood as she crossed to them.

“They say he looks better.” Maggie shook her head and wiped away a tear that rolled down her cheek. “He still looks bad to me.”

“They’ll take care of him,” Harvey said as he reached for her hand.

She nodded and looked at Malory. “You can go in.”

Malory bit down on her bottom lip. “Can you go in with me?”

“One at a time.”

Malory blew out a breath. All she could do was face it. She had one more chance to tell him good-bye. She had to do it.

She agreed with Maggie. He still looked bad. She was sure it took her an hour to walk across the room. Each step took a little away from her life as she looked down at the man she loved lying there, helpless, unconscious.

It was better if she thought of him as sleeping. Perhaps she’d be able to get through another day without losing her mind to grief if she thought of him as resting.

“I heard you had a hard night.” She took the seat next to his bed and reached her shaky hand to cover his. “I guess I should see some good in the fact that you made it through the night.” She swallowed hard. “Christopher, I miss you. I love you so much, this is killing me. Tomorrow is Christmas, and I swore if you didn’t ask me to marry you again by the end of tonight, I’d ask you myself. So here I am. It’s Christmas Eve and you haven’t proposed to me yet. So I guess here I am to make good on my promise to myself. So, Christopher Douglas, will you marry me?”

The room remained quiet except for the machines that kept rhythm at Christopher’s side.

“Well, I guess that’s that. Kinda was hoping you’d say yes.”

She let out a halfhearted snicker. How silly she must sound sitting there with him, holding his hand, while he was silent and sleeping.

The curtain to her back opened and a nurse entered the room.

“Ma’am, all visitors must leave during the shift change.”

Malory nodded.

“Well, Chris, I’ll see you later. It would be very nice if you would give me my answer when I come back. I don’t want to be angry with you for another fifteen years.”

She leaned over him gently and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

The emotional rollercoaster she’d been on for the past two days had taken its toll. She went back to the hotel room with a bottle of water and a sandwich from the deli next door, and slumped at the little table by the window to eat the only meal she’d had in two days.

Esther called her to discuss what was expected for the week ahead and she let her know how grateful she was to have her there.

Malory called Samantha to make sure everything at the restaurant was going well and then made her last call to Mac Stern, who told her someone had gotten their hands on Quincy LeBlanc when he’d returned to Detroit earlier that morning. They beat the heck out of him before the police arrested whoever attacked him. But he thought she should know that people, faceless people, were defending Christopher.

She toed off her shoes, lay across the bed, and turned on the TV to keep from dwelling on how still and pale Chris looked in the ICU. Her phone was clutched in her hand as she listened to Rachael Ray cook something in thirty minutes, but her eyelids had become heavy.

“Senora. Senora!” The voice came from beyond the door, followed by pounding.

Malory sat up on the bed, still dressed, the TV still on. She looked at the cell phone in her hand to see what time it was, but sometime after she’d fallen asleep her phone had died.

The woman at the door pounded again, and Malory hurried to her feet.

When she pulled it open, a short Mexican woman stood before her with a piece of paper in her hand. She wore a name tag that said Maria, Mexico City.

“Senora, a message for you.” She handed her the piece of paper and hurried back to her front desk duties.

Malory looked down at the note.
Hospital. Now
!

Her stomach clenched and she felt ill, violently ill. Tears stung her eyes, and her hands shook. She glanced back toward the clock on the nightstand. It was a minute past midnight on Christmas morning.

Malory found her shoes and turned off the TV. If she could kill a few more minutes, she knew she could prolong the moment when they told her he was gone. Her body shuddered at the thought.

Maria called her a cab, and twenty minutes later Malory was standing in the family room of the hospital waiting for her father and Maggie to find her.

She’d expected them to be waiting for her, or at least her father to be in the waiting area.

She watched for them, but when the sliding door to the ICU opened a man walked out. He smiled at her and she recognized him as the man from the restaurant and the man from the cafeteria. He disappeared with a smile around a corner.

“Wait! Wait!” She called after him, but when Malory reached the corner he was nowhere to be seen.

“Ms. Wilson?”

Malory turned back to see a nurse, pale and frowning. “You can go back now.”

Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach. Where was her father? Where was Maggie? She should be there with her as she’d always been in times of crisis.

Tears flowed freely from her eyes, and she clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking.

The ICU was dark. Sounds from monitors in other rooms and the murmur of people talking in low tones buzzed in and out of her head making her dizzy.

She walked to his curtain and stopped. There he lay, so still, in the bed. Tubes were still taped to his arms, but the one in his mouth had been taken out. The monitors stood silent, their screens blank.

The moonlit sky cast a silvery light over the room through the small window.

She sat down by his bed and dropped her head and wept.

“Well, I guess this was how it was to be. I got as far as forgiving you for breaking my heart, but we’ll never have the chance to move past that and spend our lives together.” She fought for a breath between sobs. “I will always love you until the day I die.”

“And I’ll love you until the day I die.”

The voice was weak and airy, but at the sound of it Malory’s head snapped up.

“Chris? Chris!” She jumped from her chair and stopped short of leaping onto the bed next to him. “You’re okay? You’re okay.”

He moved his hand just enough that she took it.

“Well, I’m far from okay.”

“But you’re not dead.”

He smiled weakly. “They said it was a Christmas miracle.”

“That’s what I asked for. I did.” She laughed as she wiped away fresh tears, but more of them continued to fall. “A man with a white beard and blue eyes . . . Oh, never mind.”

She touched his face. “I’ve never wanted anything so much as for you to wake up.”

“I’m awake and I’m never playing another game of hockey.” When she laughed again, he smiled, this time from the heart. He closed his eyes, obviously working to gain his strength. “Here,” he said opening his hand slowly. “I think this belongs to you.”

Her necklace lay coiled in his palm.

“I wanted it to protect you no matter where you landed,” she said, taking it from his hand.

“I landed where I belong. With you.”

“Yes you did. Don’t you ever leave me again.”

“I promise.”

He took another breath and she could see he was growing tired. “You need to rest. I should go.”

“Not yet.” He gave her hand a weak squeeze. “I wanted to tell you yes.”

“Yes?”

“I heard all that babble about me not asking you fast enough. You’re just impatient. So I say yes, and as soon my mom and your dad get back from the valley, I’ll give you your ring.”

She covered her mouth with her other hand. “Oh, Chris.”

“C’mon, you didn’t think I wasn’t going to ask again?” She shrugged. “I was going to ask at the end of the game. Plans got changed. So I didn’t get to ask, but I did get to answer.”

“I thought you’d left me forever.”

“I left you for a little while, but I had a guardian angel looking out for me. I knew I was on thin ice and he wasn’t going to let me fall through He wouldn’t let me leave you. Not after I finally caught you.”

“So you’ll marry me?” she asked, drawing herself closer to him and brushing a gentle and trembling kiss on his lips.

Slowly, as if it took all the energy he had, he lifted his hand to her cheek. His dark eyes gazed into hers and he smiled. “If this didn’t stop me, nothing will.”

Meet the Author

Bestselling Author Bernadette Marie is known for building families readers want to be part of. Her series
The Keller Family
has graced bestseller charts since its release in 2011, along with her other series and single title books. The married mother of five sons promises
Happily Ever After always…
and says she can write it, because she lives it.