The Last Letter(129)

This wasn’t happening. This was impossible.

Beckett turned as other members of Telluride Search and Rescue climbed down and then slid out a backboard, carrying it like pallbearers.

Then I saw Beckett’s fleece.

It covered Colt’s face.

My knees gave out, and the world went black.

…

The world came into focus as I blinked. Bright lights hovered above me, and I caught the sterile smell of hospital. Turning my head, I saw Beckett in a chair next to me, his eyes swollen and red.

Havoc slept under his chair.

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward to take my hand.

“What happened?”

“You passed out. We’re at Telluride Medical, and you’re okay.”

It came roaring back to me, the helicopter. The fleece.

“Colt?”

“Ella, I’m so sorry. He’s gone.” Beckett’s face crumpled.

“No, no, no,” I chanted. “Colt.” The tears started in a deluge, coming hard and fast as I let out a sound between a cry and a scream that didn’t seem to stop. Maybe it paused while I took a breath, but that was it.

My baby. My beautiful, strong little guy. My Colt.

Warm arms surrounded me as Beckett crawled into bed next to me, and I buried my head in his chest and wailed. Pain wasn’t strong enough of a word. There was no scale. No ten to be medicated. This agony wasn’t measurable; it was unfathomable.

My little boy had died alone and cold at the base of a mountain he’d grown up under.

“I was with him,” Beckett said softly, as if he could read my mind. “He wasn’t alone. I got there in time to be with him. I told him he was loved, and he said to tell you not to be sad. That he had everything he wanted.” His voice broke.

I looked up at Beckett, my breaths short and choppy. “You saw him?”

“I did. I told him I adopted him, that he had a mom and dad who would do anything for him.”

He hadn’t been alone. There was something in that, right? He’d been born into the hands of his mother and died in the arms of his father.

“Good. I’m glad he knew. We should have told him earlier.” All that wasted time because I was so scared. All the days he could have had Beckett and known who he was to him.

“Was there pain?” He must have hurt so much, and I wasn’t there.

“At first, but it faded really quickly. He didn’t hurt at all when he passed. Ella, I promise you I did everything I could.”

“I know you did.” That was a given, even without knowing what had happened. Beckett would have died to save Colt. “Was he scared?” I started to cry again.

“No. He was so strong and so sure. He asked about Emma. He saved her, Ella. That’s why she lived. He pushed her to safety. He was so brave, and he loved you and Maisie so much. That’s what he said last. To tell you and Maisie that he loves you. And then he called me Dad, and he was gone. Just like that.”

The sobs started again, uncontrollable and unstoppable.

This wasn’t heartbreak. Or sorrow.

It was the utter desolation of my soul.

…

“There was nothing you could have done,” Dr. Franklin said from across the table, flanked by other doctors.

I looked out the window and saw the barest hint of sunrise.

I didn’t want it to be a new day. I wanted it to be the same day that I’d kissed him goodbye, hugged him before he got on the bus. I didn’t want to know what the sun looked like if it wasn’t shining on him.

“Colton had severe internal injuries, including a severed spine, ruptured spleen, and a tear in the aorta, combined with the laceration to the femoral artery. And those are just the things we saw on the ultrasound. Please believe me when I say that there was nothing you could have done, Mr. Gentry. If anything, your quick thinking on his leg gave you those minutes that you had.”

“That’s why it didn’t hurt,” Beckett said, his hand covering mine.

“He’d lost all feeling. It didn’t hurt.”

Tears slipped down my cheeks, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. What was the point when they’d just be replaced?

“If I’d gotten there faster?” Beckett’s voice strangled the last word.

Dr. Franklin shook his head. “Even if he’d had that fall outside our ER, there’s nothing we could have done. Not even Montrose. Injuries that severe? The time you had was a miracle. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

My loss.

Colt wasn’t lost. I knew exactly where he was.

He didn’t belong in the morgue. He belonged at home, sleeping, warm and safe in his bed.

“We need to go home,” I told Beckett. “We have to tell Maisie.” A fresh wave of tears fell. How was I supposed to tell my little girl that the other half of her heart was gone? How was she supposed to pick up and carry on as half a person?

“Okay. Let’s go home.”

Dr. Franklin said something to Beckett, and he nodded. Then somehow I put one foot in front of the other, and we headed for the front door.

I paused just before the doors. The twins were born here. I’d stood from the wheelchair in this very spot and carried them out in their car seats, ignoring the protests of the nurses, walking because I had to know I could do it on my own.