“He was always the rebel. Always trying to prove himself. I’ve told him so many times not to get into trouble. To mind his own business. He’s so much like her,” she muttered.
My tears dried up as her words repeated in my head. He’s so much like her? Who’s her?
“Mom, what are you talking about?” Gavin asked, growing still.
Janice glanced up at him, realization on her face. It was obvious that what she said was a slip of the tongue. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she cleared her throat and glanced at her husband with worry.
“Later, Gavin,” Roger said in a gruff voice, shifting to his other foot in the doorway.
Gavin opened his mouth to argue but Janice cut him off. “Let’s take care of your brother,” she said, back to being the take-charge nurse. Leaning over, she ran her hands over Ryder’s back, feeling along his side. “No exit wound. That means the bullet is still in him.”
From the first aid kit, Janice withdrew a sealed bag holding sterilized surgical tweezers. After tucking a towel under Ryder’s side, she poured alcohol over her hands in order to clean them. Next she opened the bag and removed the tweezers, careful not to let the sterilized instrument touch anything else.
“I’m going to have to search for the bullet. It’s going to hurt like a sonofabitch so hold him tight boys,” she instructed Ryder and Cash.
With a steady hand, Janice inserted the tip of the tweezers into Ryder’s side. He started screaming in pain, sounds I had never heard him make before. I wanted to cover my ears but I couldn’t. I needed to hear him. I needed to know he was still alive and breathing.
Ryder started jerking one way and then the other, trying to get away from the pain. His arms flung around and he bent and unbent his knees as if he was trying to escape the pain. Gavin and Cash held him down, pushing him into the mattress to keep him immobile.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to see him suffer. His screaming went on and on, striking me like a poison laced dart over and over. Tears ran faster down my cheeks. When would it end? I can’t listen to him like this. If the bullet was in too deep, Janice wouldn’t be able to reach it. Without a doctor or hospital, he could die in his own childhood bed. The thought wouldn’t leave my mind.
I covered my mouth with my hand, holding back a cry as his terrible screams went on and on. I couldn’t walk away but I didn’t want to listen anymore. If I lost him, the man I loved and the father of my baby, my life would end.
Suddenly, the screams stopped. I opened my eyes, terrified of what I would find.
Ryder lay pale and unmoving. For a second I was paralyzed, fearing he was dead. But then I saw his chest rise and fall. Rise. Fall. Pause. Rise. Fall. Pause.
Janice’s tears landed on Ryder and mixed with his blood as she continued to search for the bullet. Gavin wiped the blood away, his large hands gentle. Janice was as steady as a rock as she dug for the lost piece of metal. How she stayed so perfectly still, not letting her hands shake, I don’t know.
We all held our breaths. No one spoke. No one moved except Janice. Eva gave me a desolate look. Only she would know how much of a mess I was right at that moment, how I was barely holding it together. Roger stood in the corner of the room, fidgeting as he waited for some sign that his son was going to be okay.
As I waited, memories rushed back to me, like an old time movie playing silently across a screen. Ryder and me playing together as kids. Hanging out as teenagers. Dancing close on the dance floor. Making love in the middle of the night. Every moment was etched forever in my mind. I remembered every detail, every touch, every time he looked at me. Every fight we had, every smile he gave me. It was all there, never disappearing.
When Janice withdrew the bullet, I let out a shaky breath. My body seemed to lose all substance. I held onto the bed frame, fighting the urge to drop to my knees with relief. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but at least Janice had found the bullet and removed it.
It was now only a misshapen piece of metal, looking more like a small lump of steel than a bullet. Janice laid it on the bed and immediately pressed a towel to the wound as some blood ran down Ryder’s side.
I saw her glance at Gavin with hopelessness. I knew something was wrong but I was afraid to ask. My mind went crazy as I thought of all that could go wrong. The bullet might have nicked an organ or a major artery. He could be dying right now, right in front of my eyes.
“Damn it, Cash, go get her something to sit on,” Gavin barked out, glancing at me as he dropped another bloody towel on the floor. “If you’re gonna be so goddamn stubborn, Maddie, you might as well sit down before you fall down.”
When I met his eyes, I saw fright overtake the hardness that had taken up residence there lately. I knew instantly that he was scared. Ryder’s not going to make it. It was written all over Gavin’s face. I looked away, refusing to believe something so terrible.
As Cash left for a chair, I watched with numbness as Janice wiped her hands on a clean towel. They were stained red with blood underneath her fingernails.
“Eva, get me a needle and some thread. I think they’re in the first aid kit,” Janice said, motioning to the container.
Eva handed everything over to her as Cash brought in a chair for me. I sat, never taking my eyes off of Ryder.
Janice poured rubbing alcohol over the needle and thread. “This isn’t sterilized but it’s the best I can do right now. We need to get that hole closed ASAP before infection sets in.”
“You sure you can do this?” Gavin asked his mom, looking pointedly at the tears running down her face.
“I can do it,” she said, sounding exhausted. She sniffed one time and I knew seeing Ryder lying so still, covered by blood, was becoming too much for her.
“Why don’t you let me? I know how to suture,” Gavin said, holding out his hand.
Janice shut her eyes tightly and nodded, handing the needle and thread to Gavin.
Soon the bullet hole was closed, the old wound was re-bandaged, and the blood cleaned from his chest. In that time Ryder’s temperature had climbed.
“The cuts on his back need to be doctored but I don’t want to move him yet,” Janice muttered, more to herself than to anyone else.
“How the hell did he get them?” Roger asked, pushing away from the wall and standing up to his full height. Behind his grey whiskers and the wrinkles around his eyes, I saw the anger that someone would hurt his son.
“They look like lash marks,” Gavin answered his dad. “Someone beat and whipped him. Some of them are scars, others are fresh. Whoever did this to him has been doing it for a while.”
Oh, God! The thought of Ryder being beaten was torture in itself. I forced myself to take a deep breath. It will be okay. He’ll survive. He’s strong and proud. He won’t give up so easily.
Janice walked over to me, hugging herself tightly. “He’s not doing so well, Maddie. We don’t know if that bullet hit anything vital and he’s lost a lot of blood.” She glanced over at Ryder, lying so still in the middle of the bed. “The next forty-eight hours will be touch and go. We need to come to terms with the fact that he may not make it.”
“No. No,” I said, rising slowly from the chair.
Janice’s bottom lip started to quiver. The emotions she had been struggling to hold in were unleashed; her silent tears became great sobs that shook her entire body and made her double over in grief. I quickly gathered her in my arms, not wanting to see her suffer like I was.
Roger pulled her away from me, wrapping his arms around her. “Let’s sit for a while. You’re about ready to drop,” he said, helping her into a chair.
As Roger comforted Janice, I walked to the head of the bed, my focus only on Ryder. A white bandage was wrapped around his middle. The tattoos still decorated his body but now they looked stark against his pale skin. I reached out a shaky hand, afraid to touch him but needing to feel him on my fingertips. I touched his forehead. It was hot. He was burning up with fever, another life-threatening probl
em.
“Did he say anything to you?” Gavin asked, wiping his bloody hands on a clean towel as he waited on my answer.
“Only my name and that he thought he was dead,” I answered in a shaky voice.
“You see anyone else?”
I cocked my head to the side, meeting his eyes. “If I had seen another person don’t you think I would have told you?”
Gavin stared at me, disapproval turning the corners of his mouth down. I glared back, baiting him to push me further. Ryder was on death’s doorstep. I didn’t need some stupid questions thrown my way right now.
“Yeah, but you were upset so maybe you forgot,” Gavin said. He turned his attention to his dad and Cash. “His gunshot wound only looks a few hours old. Whoever shot him is close.”
I felt the blood drain from my body. His words brought an image of an entire army racing through the woods, guns raised and war cries echoing through the area. Out for Ryder’s blood.
“Either some random person shot him…” Cash began.
“Or they are hunting him,” Gavin finished, staring fixedly at Cash.
I saw a silent message pass between them, one that made me nervous.
“I’m on it.” Cash turned and crossed the room, his long legs making short work of the hardwood floor. On the way out he picked up his cowboy hat and sat it on top of his head, pulling the brim down low.
“I’ll check the house and barns,” Roger added, placing a hand on Janice’s shoulder before leaving.
After his dad left Gavin scrubbed a hand over his face, the wheels turning in his mind. Finally, he faced Eva. “Where’s Brody?”
“I…I don’t know,” she answered with uncertainty.
He headed for the door, his stride swift. “You two stay here. If he wakes up, try to get him to drink some water. He’s dehydrated and with that fever he will need to stay hydrated.” He glanced over his shoulder at Eva. “I’m going to find Brody then we’ve got to circle the wagons. If the terrorists are hunting Ryder, he brought them straight to us.”
Eva and I stared at each other as Gavin left, trying to comprehend what was happening. Ryder was on death’s doorstep and terrorists might be tracking him, throwing us all into danger.
Eva glanced around the room and shifted to her other foot. I could tell she didn’t know what to do. Brody was missing and we may be under attack. I knew her well enough to know that like me, she needed to stay busy to focus on something to distract her from the growing crisis. Spotting the bloody towels on the floor, she bent over to gather them.
“I’m going to go get rid of these rags,” she said, walking toward the door.
I heard her but my focus was on Ryder. Knowing I wasn’t alone in my anguish, I glanced over at Janice, sitting quietly in a chair. Her face was in her hands, hidden behind her fingers.
“Janice?” I asked, hesitantly.
She dropped her hands away and looked up at me, despair in her eyes.
“Maddie, oh God, Maddie. I should have told him. He deserved to know the truth,” she cried, climbing to her feet. “Now he’ll never know.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, warily.
“I had a sister,” she began, wiping her tears away. “She was wild, always refusing to follow anyone’s rules. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and with whom she wanted. Sound familiar?”
I nodded, surprised I had never heard her talk about a sister before.
“She was five years younger than me. My parents couldn’t control her and I couldn’t either. She was always in trouble and eventually dropped out of high school. I didn’t see her very much after that. She was in and out of rehab for either drugs or alcohol most of the time, and when she wasn’t in rehab, she moved around a lot. But one day, I got a phone call. She was in the hospital. I thought she was hurt or in trouble, but she was calling to say she was having a baby. Gavin was three at the time. I grabbed him and rushed to the city, desperate to see my sister - and her new baby. It had been almost a year since I had seen her.”
Janice’s gaze turned distant, remembering the past. “I walked into the hospital room and there was my sister and a tiny baby boy. He was beautiful with the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He looked so much like Gavin that it was almost like I was looking at my own baby.”
I glanced at Ryder lying so still in the bed. My heart pounded harder. I knew where this was going.
“She wouldn’t touch him. She refused to look at him and begged me to take him. She insisted she didn’t want anyone tying her down. Not even her own flesh and blood.” Janice reached down to tuck the sheet around Ryder’s legs. “So later that day we took him home. Ryder’s been ours since then.”
It all made sense now. Everything. Why Ryder didn’t think he belonged in his family. Why he never felt he was as good as Gavin in his parents’ eyes. He’d always said he didn’t fit in with them, that his parents looked at him differently. Janice and Roger must have seen his real mother in him - someone wild and untamed. A person that didn’t follow the rules and didn’t mind paying the consequences for it.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked. “He had a right to know.”
Janice shook her head and started gathering the first aid equipment, placing it back into the box with jerky movements. “No one knows, not even Gavin. I tried to get my sister to move in with us after she was discharged from the hospital but she refused. I think she was afraid of getting close to anyone, including her baby. A few weeks later I tracked her down. She was staying a few towns away, trashed and sleeping in a rundown motel room with a bunch of other people. She became angry, screaming at me for finding her. So I left. After that, I only saw her one more time. She was strung out and hardly knew who I was.”
“I’m so sorry, Janice,” I said softly.
Her eyes filled with tears again. She brushed them away and continued. “When Ryder was two, I got a phone call. She had died from an overdose. Roger and I just thought that Ryder didn’t need to know about the adoption. He was ours. We had raised him from the time he was only a few hours old. It didn’t matter anymore who had given birth to him. He was our son.”
“He looks just like you and Gavin,” I said, trying to comprehend everything she was saying.
“My sister was my spitting image. I have no idea who Ryder’s father was. I don’t think she even knew.”
“Is that what you meant when you said he’s just like her?” I asked.
“Yes. Every time Ryder came home drunk or covered in bruises from a fight, I saw my sister in him. She had no qualms about putting herself in danger and neither did he. I saw her attitude each time he rebelled, every time he pushed the limits. He has her passion for life but also her recklessness. She was a good person deep down. She was just lost.”
Janice reached out and touched my cheek, her fingers cold on my skin. “My sister had no one, refusing to let anyone get close to her. But Ryder has had you all these years, keeping him grounded. I watched you play together as kids. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You’re the only person he lets in. He may be hard to get along with and rough around the edges but he loves you more than anything.”
The tears ran down my face, saddened for the baby that was unwanted by his own mother. The child that thought he didn’t belong. The man that still hurt.
“When he wakes up, I’ll tell him. I have to, I just hope he will forgive us for keeping the truth from him.” She wet a washcloth and handed it to me. “Keep him as cool as possible, Maddie. If he’s temperature gets too high…”
I took the washcloth from her, nodding numbly. I knew that if his internal temperature rose above 105°F, his brain cells would start dying. His heart would work harder to pump blood to his extremities. Eventually, his organs would cease functioning. He would die. That thought made my throat suddenly close up, choking me. Taking all the air from the room.
With a shaky hand I held the wet washcloth limply and stared down at Ryder’s pale face. His hair was long and tangled. Dirt enc
rusted every strand and made the beard around his face stiff. I didn’t know what to do, where to begin. I felt helpless and scared.
But I had to be strong. Feeling a renewed sense of purpose, I started wiping the grime on Ryder’s face, wanting desperately to see the man I loved beneath the dirt.
My gaze roamed down his chest, seeing the dried blood. Wetting the washcloth again, I gently ran it over his collarbone then down his abdomen. As the blood disappeared, the bruises on his body became more apparent. He had been beaten so badly, I was almost afraid to touch him.
My eyes moved down the strong muscles of his arm, stopping on his hand. Reaching out, I turned his palm over, cringing when I saw the small nicks and cuts on his skin. Some were deep while others were razor thin cuts. I ran my fingertips over his rough palm, remembering his hands on me. Touching, tormenting, and saving me.
I can’t believe he’s really back. It was like I was dreaming. If I was, I never wanted to wake up.
I heard Janice leave the room but I didn’t move or let go of Ryder’s hand. With my heart in my throat, I laced my fingers through his. Holding his hand tightly, I brought it to me, pressing his palm to my stomach.
He was once a baby unwanted and unloved. He was a little boy lost. Now he was a man found. One that I needed and so did our baby.
“You’re going to be a father, Ryder,” I whispered, grasping his fingers tightly. “I need you. Stay with me, please. I love you too much to let you go.”
There was no answer. No grasping of my fingers. No murmur of my name. Only the stillness of him, lying there struggling to live.
Chapter Thirteen
I prayed. I pleaded. I swore never to doubt miracles again. I cried so much those first few days that I felt empty. Dried up.
We had found him but he was still lost to us.
I watched as he fought infection. I struggled to keep him alive. I fought with the fever that raged through his body, threatening to take him from me. But I had hope that he would get better. And this time, hope won out.