With You #2 (The Knights Brothers Trilogy, Book 2) (2 page)

Kate
Samuels

Oh,
God! Where am I?

How
long have I been out of it? How long have I been here?

Ouch!
My head is killing me.

I was lying down on a narrow bed in a room with warm air. I
felt weak, paralysed. Was I heavily sedated? Was I dead? My eyelids felt too
heavy to open but I heard the sound of beeping from some machine and the
humming sound of what sounded like an air conditioner but only it wasn’t. It
was too warm. My neck was secured in some sort of brace.

The aroma of pine disinfectant wafted past my
nostrils—that distinctive hospital cleaning product smell. Was I in a
hospital bed?

I racked my brain trying to figure out what happened. Why I
was there. My mind drifted again. I tried to move my hand but I felt a pricking
feeling in one of the veins in my right hand. There was an intravenous inserted
in there. Fluids must have been running through my blood right now. Warm
fluids.
Probably salt water or something.
That was
what I had before when I was in a hospital setting with a severe case of
meningitis.

My mind drew a blank as if I had drifted into
a nothingness
.

A chill swept through my body.

Was I dead?

Was I dying?

Silence.

Darkness.

Moments passed before I became aware of my surroundings
again. Maybe it was hours that passed. Who really knew? I moaned but I didn’t
think anybody was in the room to hear me. My eyelids were still heavy and
remained closed. I must have been drugged up.
Maybe on
Morphine or something.

Fear gripped my throat and wouldn’t let go. I was
trapped—inside my self and my thoughts.

My guilt.

Guilt was always a heavy burden to carry.

But why had I felt this horrific bout of guilt? What had I
done? Or what hadn’t I done?

Pieces of images splash across the dark screen of my mind.
Peter. Oh, God! Peter was gone. He was dead. My heart squeezed at the memory.
Or had it just happened? I felt tears well up inside my eyelids. Peter was
standing up leaning over me…I looked up and looked around me. I screamed out
but nobody heard me. I was in a casket and he was looking over me. Then he shut
the door. I screamed again and banged hard on the wood but nothing happened. It
was dark.
Dark, icy cold.
I felt numb. Lifeless. Why
had Peter locked me in there? Why?

As I felt the breath sucked out of my lungs, the door to the
casket re-opened. I was expecting to find Peter but only it wasn’t. It was
Cory.

Cory Knights.

Cory saved me from being buried alive.

Cory.

Cory.

Cory.

My mind drew a blank.

Nothingness again.

Moments later, I became aware again. Awake but my eyelids
still closed tight as if welded shut. As if I’d never be able to re-open them
ever again. As if I would never see again. This time images of being submerged
in an icy river ran across my mind. I was drowning, freezing, losing consciousness.
A hand came out of nowhere. I screamed for Peter but it was Cory who had me.
“Hold on to me, Kate! I’ve got you.”

Then…

I was under water, my hair washed into my face. I could not
see, nor breathe. I was gone. Cory was with me under the water, too. His eyes
were closed. He was gone, too. Peter was there under the water. He was already
lying at the bottom of the frozen lake. Waiting for us. Waiting…

Then I heard sirens…

Darkness.

“She’s coming around, doc,” I heard a voice whisper. It was
a male voice.

I felt a probe in my earlobe.

“Temperature back to normal, now,” the male voice said. His
voice had been accented with a southern drawl.

“Good,” a woman’s voice called out. “She’s a lucky one.
Isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” the male voice agreed.

“Usually in cases like this, frostbite and other localized
injuries result in deep tissue damage.”

Deep
tissue damage?

Oh, my God! I
could have died!

“Affected body parts are usually amputated,” the woman’s
voice continued.

My heart froze. My breath stopped!

Amputated?

They would have
to amputate?

Jesus! No!

If there was every a time in my life when I felt that fear
could actually choke me with one hand and suck the living breath out of me. It
was then.

Amputation?

Everything seemed so much more into perspective now. My
problems were nothing before, compared to this. Losing someone you love kills
the soul, and losing a limb…? Unthinkable. Yet so many
of
my friends who served overseas have come back heroes—minus their limbs.

Oh, God!

I had nothing to
complain about before. Nothing.

I heard the sound of paper shuffling, and the soft sound of
a continuous beeping sound and smelled the fresh brew of a Starbuck’s coffee,
probably belonging to one of staff members in my room. That quiet lull sound of
distant beeping. There was stuff stuck to my skin, like markers or something. I
was probably hooked up to an ECG machine.

My left arm had a sudden squeeze to it. A soft material
strangled the heck out of it before deflating itself.

“Her blood pressure is still ninety over sixty,” the male
voice said.

The female sighed and instructed the male to continue to
watch it and retake the blood pressure again once the second bag of fluids go
in.

“Any news of her friend?” the male voice sounded concerned.

“He was DOA, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, no. He
died
saving her? That’s sad,” the southern
drawl of the male made
my blood curdle
. I’m sure he cared, whoever he was. But that pity tone
of voice was not working over me right now.

I’d fucked up, big time. I didn’t need him to make me feel
worse. That wasn’t just sad, it was…tragic. Unthinkable.

“What?” I cried out, but I failed to make a sound.
“Cory’s…gone?”

I began shifting, struggling to move on the bed but I felt
tied down. My limbs felt heavy. I fought to pry open my eyes but I didn’t have
enough strength to do so.

Cory’s dead?

Cory Knights?

No.

No.

No.

I felt my heart squeeze again. Harder this time as if
pumping the last drop of blood through my tightened arteries.

Cory’s dead?

A severe fluttering pounded inside my chest. My head felt a
weird sensation of heaviness as if it had tons of pressure inside and was ready
to explode. My breathing had become more labored.

Cory was dead?

Oh, God! I killed him. He was trying to save my life and I…I
dragged him down with me. Just like Peter. I was responsible for his death,
too, wasn’t I? Somehow, I must have been. Suddenly I didn’t care if I’d lost a
limb or two. As long as I hadn’t lost Cory, too! I would do anything to have
him back.
To start all over again.
To tell him I
understood that he was only trying to open my eyes to the truth.

Shit!

I wanted to die right there.

I wanted the machines to be disconnected from me.

I couldn’t go on any longer. Not knowing that Cory…Peter…No.
Cory. I wanted Cory back. He was only trying to tell me the truth. For the
first time, I came to the realization. I don’t know how but I just knew in my
gut when I came inches from death that Peter was not for me. Peter hadn’t loved
me. Not the way Cory had. Cory risked his own life. No. He gave his own
life…just to save me. Even though I had cursed him out and ran off into the
storm.

Oh, God! What had I done?

Tears swell inside my eyelids and the heaviness became
unbearable. Moisture streamed
down
my cheeks. For the
first time, I was able to pry open my heavy eyelids. But everything was a blur.
The doctor and nurse were in the room paging for assistance. I was hysterical.
She’d ordered more “Demerol” to calm me down. The nurse had injected something
into the small bag of fluids that was piggybacked to the large bag infusing
stuff into my veins.

I drifted out fast…

Kate Samuels

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” my grandmother’s soothing, soft
voice greets me as I opened my eyes. I felt oddly stronger today. I had no idea
how much time had passed by but I felt more alive.
At least
physically.
My spirit was still in the dumps.

Cory was dead.

I
was dead—inside.

She sat in the visitor chair beside my bed wearing her dark
wool ankle-length dress.
Her favorite one.
The one
she’d always worn. Her eyes looked tired. Her face was pale. How long had she
been sitting there at my side? Waiting. Waiting for me to wake up.

I tried to suck in a deep breath but my lungs burned. It was
as if I was submerged in icy waters again. But I wasn’t, was I? That was how
grief felt. But I didn’t want to mention that to her now. Not now. I wasn’t
ready to utter those words out loud.

Cory was dead.

“Yeah,” I managed to squeeze the words out through my
swollen lips. They’d felt so tender. I knew I must have looked like a gigantic
watermelon head or something. “Oh, Grandma,” I murmured, pain gripped my
throat.

“Shh. Don’t say a word, darling,” she said as she moved over
to me, stroking my forehead the way she did when I was little. Her touch was
therapeutic. Soothing. “The doctor will be right in. Are you feeling
alright
. Should I call the nurse to get you something.
”

I reached my hand to touch her wrist as she continued to fix
my hear
, my limbs still felt weaker than my usual
self. “I’m okay. I’m just…tired,” I said as I pressed the button on the side of
the bedrail to adjust the angle of the bed so that I would be propped up a bit
more.

Grandma’s grey eyes looked
dreary,
filled with despair and probably God knew how many sleepless nights worrying
about me.

“How long have I been here?” I whispered.

Grandma looked over at Gramps who sat in another chair in
the corner of the room, his eyes were closed, and he had drifted off to sleep.
I was so glad they could both be here with me. If it weren’t for them I would
have had no one here by my side, waiting for my recovery.

Grandma sighed heavily. She looked weary. Oh, God! I had
messed around with a lot of people close to me, haven’t I? First Peter, then
Cory, now my Grandparents had me to worry about. If only I hadn’t been so
stupid to head out knowing there was a storm brewing. The trouble was, most
forecasters today could barely predict to a hundred per cent accuracy these
days. Not with the environmental changes going on in the world. I really
thought I could drive to New York before the eye of the storm hit. Boy, was I
stupid. And not only had I paid a price, Cory had too.
With
his life.

“Well, your granddad and I haven’t left your side since
you’ve been in here. We’ve been taking turns bringing you warm homemade chicken
soup and talking to you. Just like the doctor had suggested. She’s
a nice woman, that doctor
…what’s her name? Languini I think.
Dr. Languini. Nice lady doctor. And then there’s that nurse. A man. Well, I’ve
never seen one of those before…not while growing up…” she rocks back and forth
and holds her hands in her lap now.

I grinned at the way grandma had spoken about the male nurse
and the female doctor.
She was so old-fashioned in some ways
,
bless her heart
. She wasn’t use to seeing too many
female doctors or surgeons back in her day and she still had some backward
thinking about women being at home raising their children so that children grew
up right.
Yeah, in another world maybe.
Working was
not an option anymore. It took two incomes to make it these days. But try
telling that to dear Grams.

“Yeah, I’m sure she’s nice.”

The warmth in me faded fast when and a chill ran through my
blood at the thought of Cory somewhere in the morgue.
His
lifeless body.
His brothers, his father—they’d all blame me for
his death. For his demise trying to save my life.

“Oh, God!” I cried out holding my head. And the tears stung
my eyes and spilled over on my cheeks. Again.

I was never going to be able to live this down.

I had hated Cory for not making a move on me first when I
had a crush on him back in grade nine.

I had hated him for stepping by when Peter asked me out.

I hated him recently when I learned that…Peter wasn’t into
types like me. But yet he hadn’t told me then. Would I have listened?

Cory gave his life to save mine.

“What is it, dear?” Grandma got up from the chair and sat
down beside me on the bedside leaning over to me hugging me.

“It’s going to be alright dear. You’ll be fine.”

“No, Grandma. No, I’ll never be fine,” I cried out, rocking
back and forth in the bed like a patient in the mental ward.

My head was held down and the heaviness resurfaced.

Just then the knock on the door sounded. I hadn’t bothered
to look up. I didn’t really care to see the doctor or any of the nurses. I just
didn’t care about anything. I wasn’t going to talk to anyone.

Then…

I heard my name called. It was a familiar voice. A chilling
feeling slithered down my spine. I was hallucinating again, wasn’t I? I smelled
the fresh brew of Starbucks coffee and a delicious scent of expensive cologne
like the one Cory had one the day he…

“Hey, everything okay? Should I get the nurse?”

I looked up and my heart leaped into my throat.

“Cory?” I cried out. “You’re…are you here? You’re…you’re
alive?”

“Well, I sure hope so, or somebody owes me a serious
explanation,” he said in his smooth, sexy deep voice that sent electricity
pulsing through my veins.

Cory was alive?

But…

“Well, dear. Of course, he’s alive,” Grandma chimed in. “He
was the one who called us here to the hospital.” Grandma looked astonished at
my reaction.

“But…” I was dreaming. I knew I was. I was going to wake up
and it would all be over. “But…the doctor. The nurse. They…they said you had
died trying to save me.” My voice trembled in my throat. I could barely keep my
body from shaking.

What was going on?

“I did?” Cory cocked a brow. His beautiful tall, muscular
frame stood over me as he placed the tray with coffees on the side table. He
knew I liked Starbucks double, double and that’s what he had on the tray. What
was going on? Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?

Not that I was complaining. I just wanted to be sure I
wasn’t hallucinating or dreaming this all up.

Grandpa continued to snore loudly. Grandma got up and gently
swatted him with the newspaper on the side table. “Wake up, Ernie. Let’s go for
a walk.”

Aww, Grandma wanted to give Cory and I a chance to figure
out what the heck was going on. What had Cory told them? Grandma was so willing
to give us privacy.

Cory gazed lovingly into my eyes. His beautiful dark, sexy
eyes held me gaze and pleasure rippled through my body again.
The memory of his soft skin and hard muscles over me, bringing me
to erotic heights, days ago in the middle of the storm in his SUV.
Oh,
God! I loved him. I wanted to be with him. Only him. But I was confused about
everything right now.

“Now,” Cory said with a charming dimpled grin on his face as
he sat down beside me. He ran his hand down my back and shivers of delight
danced through my belly—
a warmth
came over me.
Yes. He was real. This was real. I wasn’t dreaming. I was feeling
him—again.

“Who told you I was dead?” Cory asked, matter-of-factly as
if amused.

“I overheard the doctor and nurse saying DOA that he…you
died saving me.”

Cory wrinkled his dark sexy brow and then a grin touched his
lips. “Yeah. I get it now. It wasn’t me, Kate. Some dude happened to be driving
by and saw us on the lake.
Me trying to pull you out.
He came to give a hand but I told him to get help. He did but then he came
back. He must have been pushing seventy.”

“Seventy?” my voice spiked. “An old man?”

“Well it’s not that old…but yeah, he was old enough to be my
old man’s old man but I think it was his time. He didn’t really look too well.
He was a nice guy trying to give me a hand but I had told him to stay back. I
didn’t want to have to rescue two of you at the same time. One casualty was
enough,” Cory finished. He leaned in closer to me.

I let out a deep sigh of relief but more than that. My heart
was beating normally again. The pressure in my head wasn’t so unbearable now.

“Oh, God! Cory!” I cried into his chest, snaking my arms
around his waist. I thought I had lost him. Cory was alive.

Thank you, God! I was getting what so many people didn’t
have—a second chance to make things right. And that second chance was
something I was so not going to screw up.

“Listen, I’m sorry for being out of line back at the car…I
shouldn’t have…”

“No, Cory! It wasn’t your fault. You were right. I wanted
the truth and I needed the truth, even if the truth stings.”

“Yeah, the truth does hurt…but it is also the one thing that
can set you free, Kate. I wasn’t going to stand by and let you blame yourself
for a life you probably wouldn’t have had with Peter anyway. He really did care
about you though. I mean, what’s not to like about you, Kate. You’re sweet. In
every way,” he trailed off in a low, sultry voice.

“Oh, Cory!”

“Yeah,” he said as he held my hand and gave me a warm
squeeze that sent new energy through me.

“I want us to, you know…start over. I mean
,
I want to get to know you more. To be…with you.” There I said it. I wanted to
be with Cory. I didn’t care if he was going to reject me or not. I got a second
chance to tell him how I’d felt and that was golden.

“Yeah, I want to be with you, too, Kate. I want nothing more
in this world than to love you, care for you, cherish every inch of you like
you deserved to be cherished, Kate.” His voice was wavered with heavy emotion.
I had never seen Cory like this in all the years I’d known him.

“I want that to, Cory,” I said looking into his eyes and
seeing the depth of his beautiful soul, his caring eyes. The sexiness was just
one side of him. The crazy way he could bring my body to soaring erotic heights
was just one part of him. I wanted more of Cory.
To be with
him and by him.
Always.

“First let’s drink the coffee before it gets cold.” He
reached over to grab two Starbucks cups and handed me mine.

“Thank you,” I said as he handed it to me. Our fingers
touched and electric sensations of pleasure shot right through me. I had never
felt this way with Peter before. Ever. I was meant to be with Cory and I knew
it now. I was grateful for a second chance to make it right now.

Right now I had one burning question that was stirring my
curiosity.

“Cory?”

“Yeah,” he said turning to me, love glowing into his eyes.

“How…how long have I been here? At the hospital?”

“A year and a half.”

“What?” I almost dropped my coffee on my lap when my grip
had weakened. He grabbed the cup in time. “I lost a year of my life without
knowing it?”

He grinned, that mischievous sexy little grin that made his
boyish looks so adorable. “Relax, girl. I’m just kidding. You should know me by
now. It’s only been a day.”

I rolled my eyes.

He then redeemed himself when he lifted my hand to his sweet
soft lips and pressed his lips to my skin. I shivered with delight. Oh, how I
wanted him to explore my body again with his tender, magical lips as he did
when we were stranded together.

“I love you, Kate. I was too stupid before to realize it. I
want to spend my life with you.”

“That’s great,” I smiled sweetly. “I can’t imagine my
life…without you, Cory! I always want to be…with you.”