The Last Letter(60)

He sat by me through the night, never once complaining about the chairs or the monitors. He watched every level like a hawk, flipped through the MIBG brochure, paced the hall outside. He FaceTimed Colt and Havoc, brought more coffee, and read through Maisie’s binder, which at this point was more personal to me than a diary. He pulled his chair as close to mine as possible, and when I fell asleep around midnight, it was on his shoulder.

Beckett was everything I’d desperately needed these last seven months. What was I going to do when he inevitably left? Now that I knew what it was like to have someone like him in times like this, it would be a thousand times harder in his absence.

I woke with a start to find Beckett standing at Maisie’s bedside. He looked at me with a huge grin as the doctor walked in.

Stumbling to my feet, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and gasped. Maisie was sitting up, her smile wide, her eyes clear.

“Hi, Mom!”

Blinking quickly, I looked at the monitors before responding. Her pressure was back up, her temp was down, her oxygen levels up. My hand flew to cover my mouth as my knees buckled, but Beckett caught me by the waist, pulling me to his side without missing a beat.

“Hiya, Maisie-girl. How are you feeling?”

“So much better,” she answered.

My mouth trembled as I looked back at the doctor, who was flipping through the chart, listening to the report of another doctor. It was seven fifteen in the morning. The night shift had changed to day while I was asleep.

“Well?” I asked.

“Looks like the drugs are working. She’s going to be just fine.”

I turned my face into Beckett’s chest before I lost it in front of Maisie. He wrapped his arms around me as I took deep, gulping breaths filled with his scent. I was literally expelling my fear and breathing him in.

“Did you hear that, Maisie? Looks like you’re not getting out of tutoring next week,” Beckett joked, his voice a gravelly, deep rumble against my ear.

He’d driven us here, taken care of me, of Maisie, of Colt. Uprooted his entire life to move in next door. He’d been steadfast every time I’d sworn I didn’t need him and there the moment I did without any hint of I-told-you-so.

I took one last breath and turned back to the doctor, who gave me the satisfied nod of a job well done.

“We’ll keep her here in the ICU another day, just to make sure, and then move her to pediatrics another few days for monitoring. Better safe than sorry.”

“Thank you.” There weren’t any other words to say.

“You’ve got a little fighter there,” the doctor said before heading out, leaving the three of us alone.

“I don’t have Colt,” Maisie said quietly, looking around her bed.

It took me a second to realize what she was saying. “I’m sorry, we left so fast that I didn’t think to grab him.” The bear was most likely sitting on Colt’s bed, the lone pink spot in a sea of blue.

“Don’t you worry, we’ll have your mom grab him when she runs home tomorrow for a little bit. Sound good?” Beckett offered.

“What? Me run home?” Hell no, I wasn’t leaving my daughter.

“Yep,” he said with a nod. “If you leave by ten, you can get home, shower the hospital off you, and get to Colt’s graduation by two.”

Colt’s kindergarten graduation. My mouth dropped, and my gaze flickered from Beckett to Maisie. How could I leave her here? How could I miss Colt’s graduation? Sure it was a little silly, but I knew how important it was to him. How could I leave her here when she was supposed to be walking across the stage with him? How was any of this fair?

Beckett cupped my cheeks, stopping the ping-pong battle with my concentration. “Ella. She’s stable. She’ll be out of the ICU. I am more than capable of hanging out with her for a few hours. You need to be there for Colt. Let me do this. Stop splitting yourself in two, and let me help. Please.”

“Yeah, Mom. You have to go. I don’t want Colt to be sad,” Maisie added.

“I don’t have a way to get back.”

“You take my truck.”

Wait. What? Trucks were sacred to guys. He might as well be offering his soul on a platter. “Your truck.”

“You do have a driver’s license, right?” he joked.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then it’s settled. You’ll grab Pink Colt when you go home tomorrow. In the meantime, Maisie and I will watch movies and hang out. What do you say, Maisie-girl?” He looked back at my daughter.

“Yes!”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“Absolutely.” He took my hands and held them to his chest. “I swear.”

The sweetest feeling unfurled in my chest, only to plant deep in my belly. It stretched through my body until I swore my fingertips tingled.

“Take lots of pictures, okay?”

“Okay,” I replied, focused on the overwhelming emotion consuming me.

It had to be infatuation, right? Who wouldn’t crush on this man a little? That’s all it was, because there was no way in the world I was falling for Beckett.

Absolutely none.

He turned and high-fived Maisie, that little strip of white on his wrist screaming louder than my brain could deny. Because while my head had been panicked Saturday night, focused on forms and doctors and transfers, my heart had declared that this man was trusted. My heart had signed that paper while my head was consumed with other matters. This man was in my life, and in a way, mine. And Colt’s. And most definitely Maisie’s.