Only Tyler (23 page)

There wasn’t enough scotch in Sydney to help him reach that place, but so help him God, he’d drink what there was.

After that, he’d pick himself up and move on. After that.

First he had to go and make peace with his friend and his friend’s wife-to-be.

When Steve stuck his head around her office door, Katie’s heart shot into her throat. They hadn’t spoken in a week. Was he going to tell her he’d found another practice?

“Come in,” she invited, and her hands trembled.

He pushed the door open. His face was white, as though every last drop of blood had drained from it. “Kate…” He stopped, squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers against his forehead.

Her lungs seized. “Steve? What’s the matter?”

He shook his head, opened his eyes and tried again. “Kate,” he rasped, “we have to go. Now.”

“Where?” she whispered. Something was very, very wrong.

Even Steve’s lips were white as he answered. “Hospital.”

“Wh-why?”

“There’s been an accident.” He tripped over the last word.

She shook her head. No. No!

“It’s Tyler.”

She knew already. Even tucked away in her office, she could see the bike lying on its side, the wheels spinning uselessly in the air. The pungent stench of burnt rubber filled her nose, and her ears echoed with the sound of metal crunching against metal.

“Please,” she replied in a ghostly voice, “please, don’t say it.”

“I don’t want to, babe, but it’s bad. We have to get to the hospital.”

Katie froze. She couldn’t remember how to walk. Ambulance sirens wailed in her head. Crowds gathered around the wreck. And the wheels of the motorcycle spun and spun and spun.

Steve’s arm was around her, guiding her out of the office. “I’ll drive.”

She nodded mutely, seeing nothing but the crushed metal monster.

Step by agonizing step, Steve led her to the car. “I don’t have any details,” he explained. “I was just told he came off his bike and landed several meters away from the scene of the accident.” He opened the car door, helped her in and strapped her seat belt. “They said it wasn’t his fault. He did nothing wrong.” He sounded as traumatized as she felt.

He put the key in the ignition, put the car in gear and they were moving.

Heading towards the hospital where Tyler lay broken on a bed.

Katie couldn’t remember reaching the hospital. All she knew was that she was there, and there was no news. She checked her watch.

Her world had come to a crashing halt. Why hadn’t time?

Four hours had passed since they’d arrived in the emergency department. Three and a half hours had passed since they’d been sent to wait outside surgery.

Three and a half hours of waiting and waiting.

He’d been struck by a four-wheel drive that shot a red light. The driver and his passenger were a little shook up, but otherwise fine.

Tyler was not.

Katie began to shake. Violently. Someone, probably Steve, must have placed a coffee in her hand earlier. Cold, dark liquid spilled over the cup and down her arm before splashing to the ground. Her teeth clattered and her knees threatened to collapse beneath her.

An arm clasped her around the waist and the cup was removed from her hand.

She was propelled forward into a small room.

“You need to sit.” Steve led her to a chair. “Your body is responding to the shock. Sit.”

She did as she was told, but her hands still shook uncontrollably.

“They’ve finished operating,” he said. “The doctor’s on her way to see us now.” He knelt before her, holding both of her hands in his. “It’ll be just another minute before we know.”

Katie nodded mutely. She’d been in rooms like this before. Many times. When she herself was an intern. Only the circumstances had been different then.

She’d been the one delivering the news, not receiving it.

“Dr. Rosewood? Dr. Sommers? I’m Dr. Lavine.” The woman stood before them in hospital scrubs. On her head was a shower cap, and around her neck hung a matching mask. “I’m a neurosurgeon.”

Katie swallowed, her throat suddenly parched. She opened her mouth to speak, to ask the dreaded question, but couldn’t. She couldn’t put a single sentence together.

“The good news is Mr. Bonnard survived.”

Katie went limp. Blood roared in her ears and relief washed through her body.

Tyler was alive. But wait. What was the doctor saying?

“…was conscious when he arrived at the hospital. However, he was disoriented and agitated, and his verbal responses were unclear.”

Had Tyler sustained a head injury?

“We graded him eight on the Glasgow Coma Scale and sent him for an MRI. Although we cannot determine the extent of his injuries yet, we do know there is cerebral edema. We’ve chosen to sedate him, at least until the swelling subsides.”

He’d injured his head. Oh please. No. Not a brain injury. Dizziness attacked and the world swum around her. Katie closed her eyes, waiting for the moment to pass.

Again she tried to speak, but was unable to form the words.

Steve said something.

Focus, Katie, listen to her answer.

“…no more than a couple of days at most, depending on how long it takes for the majority of the swelling to subside.”

She was a doctor, for crying out loud. Why did she find it so difficult to process all the information? To ask all the right questions?

Something squeezed her hand. She looked at her lap. Steve’s fingers were clasped around hers. His knuckles were white. At least he had the presence of mind to ask the right questions.

“Was there any damage to the spinal cord?” His voice was tight and unnatural.

Dr. Lavine shook her head. “Not as far as we can tell. Our focus is on the head injury.”

At least there’d be no paralysis.

“Anything else?” Steve asked.

Dr. Lavine nodded. “We think he must have used his arms to break his fall. His left one was broken in two places. He’s just come out of surgery and has two permanent pins in his arm. If all goes according to plan, that should be completely healed within a few weeks. There was a deep cut on his right arm that required several stitches. He’ll have a scar there, but no permanent damage.”

His arms were going to be fine, but what about his brain?

“Anything else?” Steve asked.

“He’s battered and bruised, with a few nasty scratches. Other than that” she shrugged, “nothing else.”

They sat in silence. There was nothing more to be said. Katie left her hand in Steve’s, taking whatever comfort she could from him.

Finally Steve spoke. “Can we see him?”

Dr. Lavine nodded. He’s in recovery at the moment. As soon as we transfer him to ICU, I’ll give you a shout.

It was only after the doctor left that Katie turned to Steve. Like her, tears streamed unchecked down his cheeks. Tyler had just suffered a closed head injury at a high velocity. Although his body might recover completely from the accident, there was a chance his brain would not.

Steve hesitated outside ICU. “You ready to go in?”

Katie shook her head. “No,” she said feebly.

Now she understood Tyler’s motivations to hide in London. He hadn’t wanted her to see him sick, to see him as a shadow of his former self. God help her, she didn’t want to see it either, but she was faced with the prospect right now. As much as she dreaded it, there was nothing that would take her away.

She would stay by Tyler’s side and help him fight this. She would support him. Just like she would have supported him if he’d developed Huntington’s.

She shoved her shoulders back. Stood a little straighter. “Yes,” she corrected. “Let’s go in.” She took a deep breath and pushed the door open, but she didn’t let go of Steve’s hand. She’d give Tyler everything she had, but she needed a little support of her own, and she wasn’t ashamed to ask for it.

Battered and bruised was a fair description of the man she loved.

The skin around his right eye was a light shade of purple. Leftover bruising from Steve’s wrath, she guessed. The skin below his eye was turning an angry blue, and a lump the size of a golf ball marked his forehead. Scratches and small cuts dotted his shoulders, and a bloodstained bandage covered a substantial part of the biceps on his right arm. His left arm, which rested on his stomach and chest, was sheathed from wrist to shoulder in a pristine white bandage.

He was attached to monitors and a drip, but at least he hadn’t been intubated or ventilated. That was an excellent sign.

She could have taken his chart and read it from cover to cover, or drilled the nurses and doctors about his condition, but right now all she wished to do was sit beside Tyler’s bed and watch him breathe.

If he could breathe, he was alive, and if he was alive, there was a chance he could recover. For now, it was all she had, and she held onto it for dear life.

Hours later, Katie finally found the strength to talk. Steve sat in a chair on the other side of the bed, his legs stretched in front of him, his elbow perched on the arm of the chair and his cheek resting on his hand. His eyes were glazed and his jaw was set. She sat beside the bed, holding Tyler’s right hand in both of hers.

“Fate can be so unbelievably cruel,” she said quietly.

“I’m sorry, Kate.” Steve looked at her, and not for the first time, she noticed that he didn’t seem so emotionally removed from her. “You only just got him back, and now this happens.”

Katie was momentarily startled, and then she realized her ex-fiancé had probably assumed that she and Tyler were living the fairytale happy ever after.

She gave him a tired, sad smile. “I never got him back, Steve. He was gone before I returned that night. He must have thought I’d chosen you. He left before I could tell him we split up.”

“I… Oh. Shit, Kate. I didn’t know.” His eyes filled with sympathy.

“You never phoned him? Tried to tell him we were through?”

Only about a thousand times. “I didn’t know where he was, and he must have dropped his mobile phone when he left, because I found it under my table the next morning.”

Steve shook his head, his face bewildered. “He loves you, babe.

There’s no way he’d walk out on you again.”

Katie’s eyes filled for about the millionth time that night. “But he did. I guess he assumed I wouldn’t leave you, so he left instead.”

Steve swore quietly. “He did it for us, didn’t he? He stepped aside so he wouldn’t interfere in our relationship anymore.” He gave her a hollow smile.

“I’d pinned him as the ultimate bastard, but in the end he wasn’t.

He came to get back what he thought was his, but when he realized, incorrectly, that he couldn’t have it, he bowed out. He acted like my friend, no matter how much he loves you.”

“Ironic, isn’t it? In the end you also bowed out so you wouldn’t interfere with my relationship with Tyler. You also acted like a friend.

I guess it doesn’t matter how angry you are with each other, you’re still each other’s best friend.”

Steve nodded. “And look at my best friend now.” For long moments they were silent, immersed in Tyler’s horror.

Then Steve spoke. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. The kind of deep introspection you do when you lie awake at night.”

Katie listened in silence. He was talking to her again, really talking.

Like he used to. As dreadful as the location of their discussion was, she felt a profound sense of gratitude.

He gave her a wry smile. “I haven’t slept lately, so I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

She gave him a wry smile back. God knew she could relate to that.

“I don’t want to leave the practice, Kate.”

Her heart tripped. “You don’t?”

“No. I love it there. I want to carry on working with you.”

She gave him a tentative smile. “I want that too. So much! B-but will you be able to? After everything I’ve put you through?”

Steve nodded. “I think it’s a good thing Ty came home when he did.

You and I make good friends, babe, but we were never supposed to be lovers.” He sighed, looked at Tyler, then looked at her. “Some things are meant to be. You and I weren’t.”

“Steve, please, you don’t have to say this.”

“Yes, I do. I spent the first night feeling dead sorry for myself.

Thinking I was the loser, but I’m not. It was bound to end soon anyway.

We both came into the engagement with baggage.” He sighed heavily.

“You can’t build a future with someone you’re not in love with if you know somewhere out there there’s someone you are in love with.”

Tyler. Katie looked at the man she loved, and felt the shock afresh as she took in his bandages, his sleeping form.

“And Pen.” He frowned. “I’m not over her. I just hadn’t focused on her for a while.” He frowned again. “Till Tyler came home.”

Katie smiled sorrowfully. “What a pair the two of us make. In love with other people and intent on marrying each other.”

“Tyler stopped us from making a mistake. We’d have gotten married for all the wrong reasons.”

“Maybe so, Steve, but I still would have been lucky to have you.”

“You’ll be luckier to have Tyler.” It wasn’t a self-deprecating comment.

Katie would be damned lucky to have Tyler. She’d be damned lucky if he escaped unharmed from his horrific injuries.

“What about Pen? If you still love her, are you going to do anything about it?”

Steve shrugged, looked tired. “Honestly? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter what I feel about her. She made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“I’m sorry, Steve.”

“Me too, babe. I’m sorry for both of us.” He looked at Tyler, then closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his chair. “I’m sorry for all of us.”

“We have to phone her,” Katie said. Pen didn’t know about the accident.

Steve nodded. “I know. I’ve been sitting here trying to work up the courage…”

“I’ll do it.” It was the least she could do for him.

They exchanged a long look, and then Steve nodded. “Thank you.”

For the first time since she’d sat beside Tyler’s bed, Katie let go of his hand and reached for her phone. Steve sat silent and rigid as she made the call.