Letters from Home (Love Beyond Reason #1)(26)

Sharp pain behind his eyes.

“Dad. Help me. He must be dreaming. He’s going to hurt himself. Where the hell is the nurse?”

No women on the front lines. Why was she here? They would kill her. He’d seen it all, seen too much. She never should have joined. She wasn’t safe here, no one was safe…

Her voice moved around him. Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Damn it!” he murmured, fighting against unconsciousness. But the fog buried his panic, and he sank down, down into oblivion. “Go home, Lena.”

…

At the click of the door closing, Zack came to full alert.

Cool air brushed his cheek. The incessant beeping of the EKG was already starting to give him a headache. I have a heartbeat. Then he remembered. The truck. It hadn’t killed him. First, he moved his feet. He stretched the muscles in his legs next. So far, so good. He clenched his fist, felt an ache in his shoulder.

Slowly, finally, he blinked his eyes. Blinds covered the windows, a light in the bathroom was on, and a soft glow from the light above his head revealed his best friend, Mike, sitting in the seat at the foot of his bed. “Hey,” he croaked.

“Holy shit,” Mike stood up faster than Zack’s brain could register. In two long strides, he was out the door. “Doctor!”

Zack took a deep breath. Once, then twice. He wanted to move, needed to move. He started to sit up, but a pain in his side made him wince.

“Mr. Benson, you should lie back, you have several cracked ribs.” A nurse came through the door, and a doctor hurried in, a stethoscope looped over his neck. He stepped up next to Zack and placed the cold metal of the round listening device against his chest.

He found Mike’s gaze on him.

“Elena…” he managed to say. Why did his throat hurt so damned much?

Mike hesitated.

The pounding in Zack’s head throbbed against his temple.

“She left.”

Zack lifted his arm to check his watch, but his wrist was bare. He fixed his gaze on Mike.

“It’s January 3rd.”

“Gone?” He couldn’t have missed her. God couldn’t be so cruel.

“She has a flight in thirty minutes, out of Red Bluffs. Mayor Parker is flying her to Sacramento where she’ll get a plane to Texas.”

Zack leaned forward and reached for the IV.

The doctor pushed him back as Mike picked his phone off the table.

“You need tests, Mr. Benson, and rest.”

“Take it out,” Zack demanded, his voice starting to come back.

“I can’t—in good conscience—do that.”

“I can’t reach her on the phone,” Mike spoke up.

Zack stared at the middle-aged man with the white jacket and sympathetic eyes. Every second was the possibility of not seeing her. Each moment, a replay of last year. “Can’t keep me—”

“Head injuries can be very tricky, Mr. Benson. You could do more damage—”

“Tape it up, I’ll come back.”

Zack held the doctor’s gaze steady. He wouldn’t admit to the searing pain in his left temple or the dull throb in his left hip. He’d been through more hell than this and survived. Lena was not getting away from him again.

“Mike, clothes.”

The doctor scowled and checked his watch. “I have an extra pair of scrubs in my office. Please, give me five minutes to do a quick assessment and put my mind at ease while the nurse goes to get them.”

Zack would have objected, but Mike agreed for him. “I’m going to pull the car around. I’ll keep trying Lena’s phone. Do what the doctor says, Zack. I’ll get you there. I promise.”

A lump formed in his throat as he nodded. The tight feeling as he fought the swell of emotion riding through his veins rocked him. She’d been here. He’d heard her voice, felt her touch.

Christmas was done. Leave was over.

“Look to the right.”

Zack followed the sequence of instructions, familiar with the quick assessment. He’d given plenty of them to his soldiers over the years. He wasn’t in great shape. No denying it. His head hurt like a mother—but he wasn’t going to die.

And that was enough.

He pushed forward and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“There is one thing,” the doctor began.

“Scrubs,” the nurse interrupted as she came through the doorway with a wheelchair. “Do you need help?”

Zack took the greenish blue material and snaked a leg in. Then he stopped. “What the f*ck—”

“That’s the thing.”

A catheter.

“Get it out.”

“It’ll just take a moment.”

A chuckle shook his shoulders, and it felt good, even if it did remind him of the beating he’d taken, reminded him of seeing Lena that morning and waving to her. The chuckle became a laugh and then a painful cough as he was told to lie back and the nurse exposed him.

Humility. Nothing more humble than being a patient with a tube in your—

The nurse removed the catheter, then washed her hands before unhooking his IV and taping the tubing securely against his forearm. “There. You’re all set. I just need you to sign some paperwork.”

The scrubs went on easily now, but he was running out of time. The room spun just a bit as he stood, and she put an arm around his waist and guided him toward the wheelchair.