Shelter Mountain (Virgin River #2)(46)

About fifteen minutes later Jack realized he had hit the jackpot when he saw Wilke pausing outside the ICU to have a brief conversation with Mike’s mother, father and brother. So—he was the surgeon. After leaving the family so they could go back into ICU, Wilke walked toward Jack. “Come on,” he said to Jack. “I’ve got a little time.”

“He’s gonna make it, isn’t he?”

“I’d give him a ninety-eight percent chance of making it—but we don’t know the extent of his potential disabilities.” Dr. Wilke took Jack to the employee lounge in the back of a busy emergency room. Wilke poured himself and Jack coffee. Jack took a sip and almost gagged. It was horrible. He wondered if it was possible they got the tap water mixed up with the mop-pail water. “Yeah,” Wilke said. “I know. Pretty bad.”

“I own a bar and restaurant up north. Our coffee is fantastic, better than Starbucks. I think I hooked Mel with the coffee first—she’s a caffeine junky. Tell me about Mike, Dr. Wilke.”

“Please, call me Sean. Here’s the situation so far. He remains unconscious because of the head wound, although it was really the least traumatic. The bullet, miraculously, doesn’t seem to have damaged the brain, but we had to do a craniotomy to remove it, and that has caused swelling, for which a shunt and drain has had to be inserted, and I believe that explains his coma. The bullet to the groin was his worst injury—the most complicated repair. We repaired bowel and bladder and he lost a lot of blood.”

“Jesus. He made it through eighteen months in Iraq without a scratch….”

“The shoulder is bad. We’re looking at a permanent disability there, I’m almost certain.”

“Damn,” Jack said, shaking his head. “What about his job?”

Sean shook his head. “I don’t see it. His injuries are critical. We’re looking at long-term rehab. The shoulder’s stitched up real nice, but it’s going to be weak. He’d be compromised in defensive tactics.”

“But he’s tough,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s keeping him alive.”

“Thank you,” Jack said. “For everything you’ve done. For taking the time to tell me—”

“You’re welcome.” He leaned forward. “I know he’s your first concern right now, but I’d love to know how Mel’s doing. I haven’t heard from her in a long time.”

Jack smiled, happy to catch him up on Mel’s trek to the mountains, her first inclination to bolt, get the hell out of there. And how all that turned into not only her decision to stay, but remarriage and a baby on the way.

The shock on Wilke’s face was evident.

“Yeah, plenty of surprise to go around there. I know she didn’t think that was possible. Here she was, a woman who didn’t think she could ever be happy again, a midwife who would never have a baby. And I’m almost forty-one, a retired marine who never married. Hell, I was never attached, never intended to be. The day I met her was the best day of my life. A new life for both of us, I guess. She’s everything to me.”

There was a tablet on the table and Jack pulled it toward him. He reached toward Sean, holding out a hand for his pen, which the doctor took out of his coat pocket.

“You should call her. Don’t take my word for it—ask her how she’s doing. She’d love to hear from you. She gave me your name—told me to look you up.” He scribbled the number on the yellow pad and turned it toward Sean.

After a moment’s hesitation, Sean tore the page off, folded it and put it in his pocket.

“Really, give her a call. She’d like that. And one more thing. Any chance you can sneak me into ICU? Mike—he was one of my best guys. He was a fine marine. He saved lives. He was a hero. I love the guy. I do. Lotta people do.”

“You bet,” Sean said.

Jack sat at Mike’s side through the night so that the family could sleep. Mike’s head was shaved on one side, tubes and drains everywhere, but probably the hardest thing to see was the respirator breathing for him. Nurses and therapists moved his extremities, but Mike didn’t move them himself.

After briefly talking with Mike’s family, Preacher took Paige and Jack’s duffel and secured a couple of hotel rooms nearby and came back in the morning to give Jack a key. Jack went there to take a nap, but was back by afternoon, and again, spent the whole night at Mike’s bedside. Every hour at least he would stand up, lean over the bed and talk to him. “Everyone is here, buddy. Your family, your cops, some of your squad. Everyone’s waiting for you to get up. Wake up, buddy.”

On the third day, the respirator was removed and Mike opened his eyes, but looked at Jack and his parents blankly. The nurses tried to stimulate him, but he was groggy and listless.

While Jack took his place at his friend’s bedside to wait out another long night, Mike’s mother put a hand on his shoulder. It was the middle of the night when he turned to look up into her dark eyes. Mrs. Valenzuela was a handsome and strong woman in her sixties; she had raised eight kids and had a passel of grandchildren. When she wasn’t in the ICU she was in the chapel worrying the beads; by now the rosary that dangled from her hands should have caused blisters. She hardly slept. “You’re a very patient man, aren’t you, Jack?”