He needed to get her head on straight, but at the moment, Smoke needed him more.
She kissed him on the temple. “Thank you for saving me,” she choked out. She got back down on her knees at Smoke’s head. Even though he was unconscious, she kissed him on the forehead and said one last time, “Thank you for saving me.”
Then she stood, and she and Eagle walked into the fog, toward the parking lot and the sirens they could finally hear in the distance.
Gramps looked at Bull. Neither one said a word. All they could do was wait and pray.
Chapter Nineteen
Three days.
That’s how long it had been since that horrible evening. For Cassidy, it seemed as if it was weeks ago. That they’d been waiting in the hospital forever for Smoke to wake up.
After he was shot, things had turned crazy at the small airport. Well, crazier. The ambulance had arrived and whisked Smoke away and taken him to the hospital. It had taken much longer for her, Leo, Bull, and Eagle to be allowed to leave. The cops hadn’t been happy, rightly so, at finding three dead bodies. It had taken quite a while to explain what had happened. And before they’d been allowed to leave, Leo had called a contact in the FBI to vouch for his team.
The airport had surveillance tapes, but from what Cassidy had heard, with the fog being as thick as it had been that night, it was hard to see exactly what had happened. But she supposed the cops must’ve seen what they’d needed to, because no one had been arrested, which she was taking as a good sign.
Being reunited with Mario had been such a relief, but their reunion had been subdued because of Smoke’s condition. Molly was hanging in there, but the stress of not knowing whether Smoke would pull through was affecting her greatly. She wasn’t eating like she should, and her morning sickness had increased tenfold.
The doctors had operated on Smoke, patching up his lung that had been punctured by one of the bullets, but it was the other bullet that had done more damage. It had bounced around inside him, nicking his intestine, sending bacteria and waste throughout his belly. He’d gone septic, and the doctors were doing all they could to combat the infection raging throughout his body.
He was in a medically induced coma, giving him time to heal with as little stress as possible. Molly had been sitting with him as much as she could get away with. Everyone was taking turns staying with her in his room. After hearing the entire story of what had happened, the nurses were looking the other way and allowing more than the allotted number of people in his room at the same time.
Cassidy felt Leo’s arm go around her shoulders. He’d been dividing his time between holding down the fort at Silverstone Towing and staying by Smoke’s side.
“You look tired,” Leo told her.
Cassidy snorted out a small breath. She was exhausted. She’d done her best to get Mario back on a normal schedule. She’d insisted he return to school and to his gymnastics, cheerleading, and dance practices. Cassidy knew he wanted to be with her and Leo, but for his sake, he needed normalcy.
He’d been extremely upset with her for leaving him in the safe room at Silverstone when Lloyd and Martin had shown up, and she still hadn’t had the time to sit down with him and discuss everything that had happened.
Tilting to the side, Cassidy rested her head on Leo’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “I’m okay,” she sighed.
She felt him shake his head, but he didn’t call her on the lie. “How’s Smoke?”
“Hanging in there.” She wanted to be able to tell Leo that his friend was improving, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The doctors hadn’t said he was getting worse, but they hadn’t been overly optimistic he was getting better either. “All they’ll say is that it takes time,” she said on a sigh.
They were in a small private waiting room. Bull had just gone to relieve Eagle, who was sitting in Smoke’s room with Molly, and Taylor was supposed to come by soon.
“This isn’t your fault,” Leo said softly.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Cassidy didn’t want to do this now. Didn’t ever want to have this discussion with him.
“Look at me,” Leo said sternly.
Cassidy shook her head.
Leo shifted away from her side. Opening her eyes, she saw he was kneeling on the carpet in front of her chair. He was tall enough that he could look her in the eyes as he framed her face with his large warm palms.
“This isn’t your fault.”
Okay, so they were having this discussion now. She just needed to suck it up. “It is.”
“No,” he said resolutely.
She opened her mouth to explain all the reasons he was wrong, but he cut her off. “I know what you’re going to say, but it’s all bullshit.”
“It isn’t,” Cassidy insisted. “If I was stronger, if I hadn’t run from my problems, we never would have gone to Jamaica. Alfred wouldn’t be dead. Smoke wouldn’t be lying in that hospital bed upstairs.”
“Wrong. If I hadn’t been a chickenshit, if I’d claimed you twenty-five years ago, you wouldn’t have married Alfred. He wouldn’t have treated you and Mario like shit and forced you to flee El Paso. If Michael Coke wasn’t an asshole drug dealer, bent on taking advantage of people and using them, you wouldn’t have been trapped in Jamaica. You wouldn’t have been so desperate that you had to write the FBI for help. And if Lloyd hadn’t been a damn pervert, and if he wasn’t an entitled prick, you wouldn’t have had to sacrifice yourself to save a roomful of friends you love, and who love you in return. You wouldn’t have been kidnapped and hit in the face and almost flown out of the country back to your worst nightmare. So if you want to blame anyone for Smoke being shot, blame me.”
Cassidy stared at Leo in astonishment. “This isn’t your fault,” she argued.
“And it’s not yours. What I do know is, assuming responsibility for every damn thing that happens to those around you is taking too big a toll on you. Shit happens in life, Cass. Some of it good, some of it bad. And if you dwell on the bad, it’ll eat you alive.”
He was right, she knew he was, but it was very hard to let this go. Especially when she was terrified that Smoke might die. She’d probably lose the best friends she’d ever had. If Molly blamed her, she didn’t know what she’d do.
“I heard you refuse to pass on his words to Molly,” Leo said.
Cassidy flinched.
Leo shook his head. “It was the right thing to do. I’ve known Smoke a hell of a long time. He was looking for approval to give up in that moment. You wouldn’t give it to him. He asked me to pass on the same thing. And you heard me tell him no way in hell, that he could tell Molly and his child he loved them his damn self. If that was me upstairs, I’d fight the devil himself to get back to you. Smoke will do the same. We just have to give him time.”
Cassidy couldn’t stop the tear that fell from her eye. But Leo didn’t even blink. He leaned up and kissed it away. Then did the same to the next one.
The next thing she knew, she was sitting on Leo’s lap on the floor. He cradled her as she sobbed. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying, but she couldn’t stop once she’d started.
Fifteen minutes later, her face was swollen, and her eyes were red, but she felt a lot better.