He dragged himself from bed, went into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. He stepped under the warm spray and ran his hands through his hair, thinking of his call to the hospital last night. No change. Rob had been moved to the ICU, and he was being treated prophylactically for aspiration pneumonia.
The feel of Rob’s weight in his arms was ingrained in his muscle memory. The feel of his friend’s stilled chest beneath his hands came back to him, and the rush of fear that had torn through him returned. Dane fisted his hands, remembering how hard he’d thumped Rob’s chest. His lungs burned as they had yesterday. He’d have climbed into Rob’s body and pumped his heart by hand if he could have. He thought of Lacy running into his arms at the hospital and, later, walking off the boat and sprinting away. The images came at him all at once. Lacy, naked beneath him. Rob laughing on the deck of the boat. The fucking shark whipping up toward the surface. Dane covered his face, trying to stop the flow of tears that burned as they left his eyes. He didn’t recognize the rumbling in his chest. He didn’t hear the desperate cries as they tore from his lungs, or feel the muscles in his legs tense when he dropped to his knees on the shower floor and buried his face in his hands. He didn’t feel the terror that ripped through him at the thought of losing Rob and Lacy. A piercing pain seared through his heart. Finally. A pain he recognized. The same gut-wrenching pain that had speared him the day his mother had died. He cried out again, this time with determination. The words that came were indiscernible, but they didn’t matter. He had to let the incessant gnawing pain out of his body before it ate him alive.
Chapter Thirty
DANE’S PHONE HADN’T stopped ringing all morning, and as he pulled into the hospital parking lot, it chimed again. Treat. He couldn’t deal with him right then. He couldn’t deal with Blake, or Savannah, or Hugh, or Rex, or any of the others he’d received calls from. Every time the phone rang, he looked to see if it was Lacy—half wishing it was her, though he knew he wouldn’t have answered it. I did the right thing. She could be sitting by my bed in the hospital right now. The thought sucked the life from him. His family would have to wait. He barely had the fortitude to do what he had to do and visit Rob.
He left the phone in the car and lumbered into the hospital, stopping just inside the doors to gather his wits about him. He scrubbed his face with his hands, then ran his hand through his hair, thinking about Katie and Charlie, now with their grandparents, probably petrified about their father’s situation. God, please let Rob be okay. Take me. He has a family. Please. Take me.
He made his way up to the ICU and stood outside Rob’s room, taking one deep breath after another. Hold it together. The door felt too heavy, wrong, as he pushed through it and stepped inside. The sight of Rob’s immobile body diminished beneath the sterile sheets, the tube still down his throat, and Sheila asleep in a chair, her hand encircling his, was too much for Dane. Tears threatened again, and he struggled to hold them back, for Sheila’s sake. His chest lurched with each constricted sob that he held hostage.
The door slipped closed behind him, and Sheila raised her head with a start, her hopeful eyes finding Rob before realizing the noise came from the other side of the room and shifting her gaze to Dane.
“Dane,” she whispered.
He moved toward her, his arms open wide. She met him at the foot of the bed and collapsed against him, opening the flood gates for his tears.
“I’m so sorry, Sheila. I wish it had been me.”
“I know you do,” she said. “This wasn’t your fault, Dane. It’s a risk of the job. I know that. Rob knows that.”
Tears slipped down his cheeks as he held her, strangled by guilt. “What…what are the doctors saying?” he managed. Sheila went back to her chair, and Dane squeezed Rob’s other lifeless hand. His heart sank when Rob didn’t respond. It’s real. This is real. Oh God. Rob.
“They’re hopeful. They said we wait.” Sheila stood and touched Rob’s cheek. “I can’t lose him, Dane,” she whispered. She kissed Rob’s cheek. “Don’t you leave me. Don’t you leave Katie and Charlie.”
A tear slipped down Dane’s cheek. Don’t leave me. “I did everything I could. The second I realized what happened, I got him out of the water. If only I’d been closer to him. If only I’d been the one at the rear of the shark.”
“Stop,” Sheila whispered.
“Sheila, I’d do anything to have had it be me. Rob has everything to live for. Jesus, Sheila, I’ve ruined your family. Your kids…They need their father.”
“Stop,” she repeated.
“He quit. I shouldn’t have let him go down. He was probably distracted. I should have stopped him,” Dane said.
“Stop, Dane. Please stop. You can’t change what happened. You can’t make it all better. All we can do is pray he gets well. And if not…” She turned away, her shoulders rounded forward, rocking with sobs.
Dane wanted to take Sheila’s pain away. This had to be his fault. Maybe he’d been too distracted by Lacy lately to see what was going on around him. Maybe that’s why he’d missed the warning signs that Rob was going through a difficult time. In an effort to take some of the burden and all of the blame for all that had happened between them lately, Dane said, “I ended it with Lacy.”
She turned to face him, shaking her head.
“Maybe if I wasn’t thinking about her all the time, I would have seen the trouble you and Rob were having.”
Sheila sniffled through her tears. “No, Dane. Rob didn’t want you to know. He didn’t want to quit. Don’t break up with Lacy because of that. None of this is your fault, and in your heart you know that.”
He clenched his eyes shut against the tears that tumbled down his cheeks. He knew it was selfish to keep talking about himself, but he couldn’t stop the confession from leaving his lips. “This is real. I can’t do that to her. What if it happens to me in a year, or a month, or ten years?” He shook his head. “I can’t do it. She deserves a normal life.”
“Oh, Dane. Yes, it could happen to you, too.”
For a moment everything in the room felt as though it stopped, except for that damned beeping from the machine. Dane felt like he’d been thrown against a wall. Yes, it could happen to you, too.
“I’m so sorry,” Sheila said. “She loves you.”
Dane shook his head. Stop thinking about Lacy. That’s over. Focus on Sheila and Rob. He wiped his eyes with the crook of his elbow.
“Tell me what you need and it’s yours. Don’t worry about finances. I’ve got you covered forever. Rob always knew I would if anything ever happened, but what can I help with? The kids? Anything?” He remembered from when his mother was sick and they didn’t know which way she’d turn the next hour, or day, or week, that there were no words to heal the despair that buried itself in a person’s soul while they waited for a loved one’s body to decide its fate, but knowing Dane was there and willing to do whatever she needed might give her comfort.
She shook her head. “I just want Rob. He’s my best friend, Dane. He’s my life.”
Dane leaned over and kissed Rob’s forehead. He took his healthy cheek in his palm and whispered, “You can pull through this. You’re the strongest man I know. Your run’s not over yet. I love you, man.”
“He knows you do,” Sheila said.
I’m not so sure.
Chapter Thirty-One
STOP THAT INCESSANT banging! Lacy lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling. She’d been in that position for hours, thinking about Sheila and her children, worried about Rob. She wondered if Rob had had any final thoughts when he was whipped with the tail of the shark as it careered through the water, or if he went from excitement over seeing the damn thing to nothing. Unconscious. And then her mind traveled back to Dane. It always comes back to him. She wondered for a moment if it was him banging on the door, but that thought disappeared with her next breath. She’d seen the finality in his eyes.
She curled up in a fetal position, praying that whoever was banging would go away. How could she move with a broken heart? The reality of the dangers of Dane’s job were staring her in the face, and they’d apparently hit Dane like a bullet train. He said what I’d been thinking but was too weak to admit. We’re doing the right thing. That didn’t mean she didn’t feel like she’d been run over by a Mack truck.
The banging stopped, and Lacy flipped over to her other side and stared at the curtains. How could the sun be out when Sheila was sitting in a hospital room wondering if her husband would live or die? Oh God. Rob could die.
“Lacy, open the fucking door.”
Kaylie? Lacy’s body went rigid.
“Lacy! It’s us. Please open the door. Lacy, are you okay?” Danica banged on the window again.
Lacy sat up, wanting to climb through the window and run into her sisters’ arms, but she also wanted to wallow in her pain and sadness. She wanted to feel the pain of losing Dane, if only to help her believe it was true.
“Lacy, it’s us,” Kaylie said. “Please open the door. Jesus, if you did something stupid like overdose, I’m going to kill you.”