Three dots blinked for a few minutes, then stopped, but no other text message appeared. I would have traded a year of my life to know what she’d typed and deleted.
…
“Hey,” Walt called from the doorway in a whisper.
I held up my finger, then checked to make sure Dad was still sleeping and crept past Xander’s outstretched legs from where he was passed out on Dad’s other side.
“How are you doing?” Walter asked me once I made it into the hallway and shut the door.
“About as well as you’d expect.” I ran my hands over my face. How was it only eight p.m.? It felt like it had been years since I’d woken up across from Willow.
“Okay, then how is Art?”
“He’s doing better than this morning. Probably needs another couple sessions in the hyperbaric chamber. Still hasn’t woken up yet, and he’s not capable of breathing on his own. There’s some serious lung damage they’re hoping to reverse.”
“Not capable…” Walt’s face fell. “Did Xander put him on a ventilator?”
“Yeah.”
Walter’s eyes slammed shut, and his mouth flattened as he took a deep breath, then another.
“It’s my fault, too,” I admitted.
“What?” He visibly startled.
“When I got to the house, I helped drag him out and told Xander to stop chest compressions because his heart was pumping. I told him he only needed rescue breaths.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“And you think that led to him being on life support?” he questioned.
“I didn’t say anything to Xander until the paramedics already had Dad and were loading him on the chopper. I should have said something from the beginning.”
We stepped apart as a medical team came through the hallway, and I saw Simon hovering near the waiting room down the hall. I offered a wave, and he sent one back.
“It’s nice to see Simon,” I told Walt. The guy looked good. Happy. Just like his dad.
“He wanted to give us a few minutes before ‘barging in,’ as he put it,” Walt explained, waving to his son. “It’s understandable that you told Xander how to save him. Understandable that you helped save him. It would be understandable if you were okay with that ventilator. That’s your father in there. No one is going to fault you for wanting him to live.” He slung a small duffel bag from his shoulder. “Your girl dropped this off and asked that I bring it for you. Sorry it took so long. Took Royal until this afternoon to get the power back up. I swear that system hasn’t been upgraded in the last fifty years. It’s a miracle we’re not all on nob and tube.”
He handed the duffel over, and I took it, recognizing it as one of my lesser-used ones I’d stashed at the top of my closet.
“She’s not my girl,” I muttered. “Thank you for bringing it to me.”
“Willow Bradley has always been your girl, Camden. Doesn’t imply any romance.” He arched an eyebrow.
“Right.” I swung the bag over my shoulder and unzipped it. She sent sneakers and a few sets of fresh clothes that varied from athletic gear to jeans to a pair of pressed khakis and dress shoes. I laughed as I brought out a Ziploc bag full of cookies.
God, she’s amazing.
“Yeah, she sure is. Said she owed you or something, since breakfast got ruined?”
Shit, I’d said that out loud.
There was a sparkle he couldn’t contain in his eye when I looked up. “I pulled her out of a snowdrift and took her to my house. It’s not like that.”
“I never said it was,” he replied, outright smiling. “I’m also not as blind as the rest of the men in your family.” That stare turned pointed.
“Should I be insulted?” I dropped the cookies into the duffel.
“Hardly. You Daniels boys were always a little thick when it came to seeing things you didn’t want to. Your mama knew what was what, though. Especially when it came to the Bradley girl.”
“Why would you—?”
Chaos broke out behind me.
“Help!” Xander shouted. I was through the door before he finished the word.
Dad thrashed on the bed, his eyes open and wild, panic obvious in every line of his face. Xander was almost on top of him, struggling to keep his arms down.
“Cam! Help, he’s trying to rip out the trach!” he shouted.
“Get the doc!” I ordered Walt, then dropped the bag and ran to the other side of Dad. “Dad, stop,” I pleaded.
He met my eyes, and his flared with recognition. Then he screamed, a distorted, horrifying, barely audible sound, around the tube that pushed his air.
Seeing Xander losing, I pushed down on Dad’s biceps as he flailed, fighting the intubation and arching his neck.
“I’m making it worse!”
“Don’t stop! He’ll rip it out, and his lungs can’t handle it yet!” Xander argued.
Dad slipped free and made contact with Xander’s chest, shoving him into the cabinet of medical supplies right behind him.
The strength I’d always been so proud of had now become a liability in a way I’d never imagined.
“Dad! Stop!” I shouted as he reached for the tracheotomy tube. God, he was going to have to go through it all again if he ripped it out. Xander would make them put it back in.
I gripped his wrists in each hand and forced them to the side of his head as the medical team barreled in.
The look in Dad’s eyes said it all. I was the enemy who had betrayed him, and in this moment, he was right. It didn’t matter if he was lucid in there or if he thought I was fifteen or twenty-eight—I was the bad guy here.
My heart shredded and bled out with each attempt he made to break free, until orders were shouted and a nurse slipped something into his IV line.
Xander came around to my side, since his was occupied by the medical team, and leaned over the bed rails. “Dad, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” he repeated in a calm tone.
Dad looked at Xander, his eyes softening. Good—the drugs they gave him were taking effect.
Then they came back to me, and all the fires of hell were aimed in my direction until Dad lost consciousness, his body going limp beneath my hands.
“It’s okay. He’s out,” the doc assured me.
I let go of his wrists and blanched at the red marks I’d left on his skin.
Xander reached around me and brought Dad’s arm back down to the restraint as the doc did the same on the other side.