Under Zenith (25 page)

“If this is you…hitting on me, I can…see why you’re still single,” I replied, feeling my lips curl up into a smile despite how sore my cheeks felt. “Skull in the abdomen?”

“Glad to see you haven’t lost that classic Isla wit,” he answered, sounding
just like the Hayden I remembered, if not slightly nicer.

“You’re certainly chipper,” I accused, wondering why he wasn’t being awful to me.

“About that,” he began, looking guilty. “The whole procedure to bring you back apparently chose one aspect of my personality to cling to and that trait got exacerbated…a lot.”

“You’re really…
a nice person?” I asked, hoping I could properly convey my skepticism through my broken speech.

“I’m a naturally dry and sarcastic person,” he admitted. “And apparently when I transferred over
, that turned into me being a sadistic jerk who tried to throw you off a cliff.”

I giggled at the memory, though my ribs weren’t t
oo happy about the action.

“Thanks for that,” I told him.

“Yeah, I’m not sure how I’ll ever be able to apologize enough for my…let’s call it anger issues, when you saw me in there.”

“In where?” I asked, wanting to understand exactly what had happened.

It was wonderful that I had my Hayden back, but I needed to know how he came to be my Hayden. I didn’t think it was common for coma patients and their doctors to somehow connect on a psychic level.

“I promise I’ll explain everything to you later, but right now I’ve got to be a good doctor and tell you to go back to sleep. You really need your rest,” he said, still sounding too nice and throwing me off a bit.

“You’re not… my mother,” I said sarcastically.

“Apparently you responded better to the jerky version of myself,” he said, still smiling down at me.

I tried to shrug my shoulders, but it proved too difficult so instead I just started up at him challengingly, ecstatic to be having this familiar little exchange with him.

“
I know your slow southern mentality makes it difficult for you to follow directions, but go to bed right now and try not to screw it up somehow,” he deadpanned.

“That’s…
more like it.”

Chapter 24

I was convinced Hayden must have snuck something into my IV before he left
, because I actually slept amazingly well for the rest of the night and by the time I opened my eyes the next morning, my family was in my room again, watching me like a hawk.

“Hi guys,” I said wearily, smiling through my sleepiness.

“Isla, you can talk,” my mom said tearfully, taking my hand in hers and giving it a little squeeze.

“I’m so sorry about the truck,” I instantly said.

I knew this was probably pretty low on the list of conversational topics that day, but I had to say it before I forgot. The truck Daddy had gotten me was expensive and they weren’t rich. I’d owned it for less than an hour before completely totaling it.

“Somehow I think you’ve paid for it enough,” Daddy said to me with a grin. “Don’t worry about that for a second. We’re just glad you’re all right.”

“What happened, Isla?” my brother asked, looking somewhere between excitement to see me again and genuine curiosity. “The police said it looked like you just swerved off the road for no reason.”

“I dropped the CD you got me,” I said, amazed at how easily my speech came now. “And I reached down to get it
, but when I looked up there was a dog in the road.”

“You nearly got yourself killed trying to avoid a dog?” my dad asked skeptically.

Surely the daughter of a hunter wouldn’t swerve for a dog.

“Yes Daddy,” I said with a laugh. “It happened really fast. I just panicked.”

“And because you were trying to get the CD I bought you, I’m going to guess you’ll try to pin this whole thing on me?” Tuck asked jokingly.

“You know it,”
I told him before suddenly getting dizzy again.

I closed my eyes
briefly against my sudden lack of balance and waited a moment until the room stopped spinning.

“You all right
, baby?” my mom asked, sounding worried. “Tuck, why don’t you go grab the doctor.”

My eyes snapped op
en instantly at the thought that I’d be seeing Hayden again in the same room as my family. It was like having two different lives that were suddenly crashing together. It had been weird enough when I’d first woken up, but now that I knew Hayden knew me and what we’d experienced was somehow real, it was just too weird.

Almost immediately, a
man in scrubs walked into the room and checked my IVs and machines, examining me closely.

“She may experience some dizziness for a while. We’ll get her into physical therapy once she’s up and moving again to work on her balance and make sure her neck has full range of motion,” the doctor informed my family.

“Where’s Hayden?” I asked in confusion.

“Hayden?” my mom replied
, looking down at me like she was worried I was seeing things.

“Dr. Temple is off at the moment
, but he should return later tonight,” the other doctor said, nodding to my parents and leaving the room.

“Hayden?” my mom asked me again.

“Dr. Temple,” I mumbled, my cheeks flushing.

“Uh oh,” Tuck said with a wicked grin on his face.

“Well, someone’s got to provide for her, Son. She got a degree in vocal performance,” my dad said, always eager to tease me about my major. “She might as well fall for a doctor if she wants any hope of living in a home that isn’t on wheels.”

It was like I hadn’t been gone at all.
They were already right back to teasing me.

So much for worrying about
their injured daughter.

“My head feels a lot better
, thanks for asking,” I said loudly, hoping I could change the subject and happy that my family wasn’t the sad, mourning type.

Even if they drove me nuts, I was glad that they weren’t treating me any differently. I could use some normalcy right at that moment.

“Probably all thanks to
Hayden
,” my brother stated, very unhelpfully.

“Gee, I’m super tired guys,” I lied, yawning for effect.

Yes, I was excited to see my family again and yes, I was happy to not be dead, but there was no way I was going to talk about my crush on my doctor with Tuck. I’d rather play the recovering-coma-patient card first.

“We’ll let you rest
, honey,” my mom said sweetly, giving me a secretive wink before turning to leave.

Yeah, she knew what was going on all right.

Cute doctor. Single daughter. Didn’t take a genius.

“She’s totally faking it, Mom,” Tuck pointed out, though it was in vain.
She was already hurrying him out the door.

“Is there something going on between you and that fancy Irish doctor?” My dad asked, once Mama and Tuck had gone.
“I saw the way he was smiling at you.”

“Irish?”
I asked with a laugh.

Daddy was terrible with deciphering accents. Half o
f the time, he thought people from California were from Europe, so it didn’t really surprise me that he thought Hayden was Irish.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not talking to you about boys, Daddy,” I insisted, my cheeks already burning from this conversation.

“Well that dog won’t hunt, b
aby. Don’t think I won’t be at that boy’s door with a shotgun in the next few days, making sure he’s good enough for you,” my dad threatened with a smile.

He leaned over and gave me a light kiss on the forehead.

“Hank, you leave that girl alone,” Mama called from the hallway.

Daddy smiled over at me one last time, letting me know I wasn’t off the hook as far as Hayden was concerned, before he walked out the door.

“Love you guys!” I called after them, mentally shaking my head at my crazy family.

They were
completely impossible.

“Knock, knock,” Hayden called, poking his head in the door before coming in.

He must have been off the clock because he wore white Chuck Taylors,
fitted khaki pants, and a light blue T-shirt that brought out his distractingly blue eyes.

“What are you doing here?”
I asked in confusion, glad that I was finally sitting up in bed so that we didn’t have to have another awkward conversation with me lying down.

“It’s nice to see you too,” he said sarcastically.

Maybe his personality wasn’t as exaggerated as he let on. Though I had to admit that he was still much nicer than he ever was in the tasks.

“Sorry I just…
the other doctor said you didn’t work until later tonight.”

“I don’t,” he confirmed, coming to sit by my bed. “But I thought I should bring
you something to say sorry for…you know…throwing you off a cliff and yelling at you…a lot.”

He pulled a small bouquet of
white lilies from behind his back and offered them to me. I took them from him, but raised my eyebrow at the gesture.

“Aren’t these funeral flowers?” I asked.

“I couldn’t resist,” he said with a grin. “You just kept going on and on about how you were dead, so it seemed appropriate.”

Yep. He was my Hayden after all. Just my Hayden mixed with a nice person.

“So you knew I wasn’t dead the whole time?” I asked incredulously, wondering how he could let me think I’d lost my family forever.

“Technically I knew,” he said
guiltily. “But I didn’t know when I was with you.”

“Okay, you’re seriously going to have to explain to me what happened, because I’m way past confused.”

“It’s pretty intense…are you ready to run this particular mental gauntlet?” he asked, sounding like the Hayden I knew, who had no faith in me.

“Glad to see your personality hasn’t changed
that
much,” I accused, narrowing my eyes at him.

He ignored my statement and went on as if I’d never spoken.

Typical.

“When the ambulance brought you here, it was pretty obvious you’d had some major head trauma,” he began, placing his hand on the
bed just inches away from mine.

I resisted the urge to take his hand and opted for listening to his explanation of my
bizarre experience with him instead.

“You were unconscious
, but had full brain function. You were breathing on your own, your brain was sending all the right signals to keep you alive, but you wouldn’t wake up. We were sure the head trauma had caused the coma, we just weren’t sure how to bring you back out of it.”

I imagined how scary the whole thing must have been for my parents and instantly regretted ever going down that mental road. It was too painful.

“We’ve had cases like this before and we’d been developing a new procedure to help guide our coma patients back into consciousness, but it was extremely untested. We’d only tried it once before.”

“On your niece?” I asked, remembering Hayden’s regret over her. He nodded somberly, looking away from me. “What happened to her?”

“I tried the same thing we tried with you but…it didn’t work. We never got her back.”

I shuddered at the thought and, despite my reservations, grabbed Hayden’s hand and gave it a squeeze. He looked up at me and gave me a sad smile before regaining his composure and going on.

“Your parents were reluctant to try it, but after you didn’t wake up for a few days with no signs of improvement, they decided to give it a shot.”

“It’s a new procedure?” I asked, to which Hayden nodded. “It must be expensive.”

When I’d been with Hayden in the tasks, I’d expressed my hope that I was, in fact, dead, because sitting in a hospital meant I was taking the most expensive nap ever. Now that I was alive and awake, I’d have to live with the financial ruin I’d brought on my family.

The thought made me sick to my stomach.

“My parents can’t afford something like that,” I said with a heavy sigh.

“I remember you mentioning that when I was with you once
…or twice…or a million times, so I took the liberty of setting up a fund in your name here at the hospital,” he said, and suddenly, I was grateful that he wasn’t as mean as he’d been in the tasks. “People must love your family because we raised more than enough to cover your hospital costs. In fact, people were really eager to rally around your family. You’re something of a local icon now.”

“Great. The girl who
almost died trying not to hit a dog is an icon,” I said sarcastically, though I was, in fact, incredibly grateful.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to repay the generosity of the strangers who’d donated so much time and money to keep my family afloat. It made my eyes burn a bit with the tears I wouldn’t allow myself to shed in front of Hayden.