Sea of Love(47)

I almost wish you would.

“Kaylie!” Danica chided.

Lacy pushed herself from the bed and peered through the curtains at her sisters’ worried faces. They were staring at each other, whispering something Lacy couldn’t hear. They didn’t notice her. She released the curtains, went out the front door, and listened to them arguing about calling the police. Lacy stepped off the porch and stumbled through the grass. Her legs felt like lead, and she grabbed hold of the side of the cottage to keep from falling over as she reached the side yard.

“Oh my God. Lacy, honey, are you okay?” Danica wrapped her arms around her and pulled her against her chest. “I was so worried.”

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Kaylie asked. “We’ve been calling since last night.”

Lacy couldn’t talk. She closed her eyes, hoping that somehow Danica’s body would absorb her own and she would disappear.

“Come on. Let’s go inside,” Danica said.

Lacy felt her sisters guide her into the house and to the couch.

“Lacy, you need to talk to me.” Danica crouched before Lacy, staring into her eyes. “Look at me, Lace.”

Lacy lifted her eyes.

“Good. You need to talk to me, honey. Max called and told us what happened. No one could reach you or Dane. We were worried sick. Please talk to me. Please, Lacy,” Danica urged.

“Rob’s unconscious,” Lacy whispered. “Yesterday morning he was fine. Now he might die,” she said.

“We know, honey,” Danica said.

“Dane said he can’t put me through what Sheila’s going through.” Lacy’s voice was flat, emotionless, and that’s how she felt, like someone had stolen her will to feel anything. She’d gone numb. She was the living dead.

Kaylie brushed Lacy’s hair from her face. “Oh no. We didn’t know that. Oh Lacy, I’m so sorry.”

Lacy shook her head. “It’s for the best. He could die doing what he does. Why go through that?” She shook her head again. “I just need to live my life, do my job, and move on.”

“Oh, Lacy.” Danica hugged her again. “What can we do?”

“Take me to see Sheila. She needs me,” Lacy said.

“Can we clean you up first?” Kaylie asked.

Danica shot a look at her.

“What?” Kaylie asked. “If she weren’t so upset, she wouldn’t want to go to the hospital looking like she does. I’ll help you get ready.” She took Lacy’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on. We’ll just fix your hair, put on a little makeup, clean clothes. It’ll only take a minute.”

Danica appeared in the bathroom doorway. “Your phone rang, and I found it behind the couch pillows. You have twenty-seven missed calls. Twenty are from us, three are from Max, and two are from a number without an ID. Two are from your boss. Do you want me to call your boss back?”

Kaylie had washed Lacy’s face and fixed her hair. Now she was busy putting concealer on the bags under Lacy’s puffy eyes. Lacy shrugged. Dane didn’t call. His words flew back at her, causing a pain so great in the pit of her stomach that she moaned. Please, just go.

Danica crouched beside her again. “Lacy, what is it?”

She shook her head, tears streaking the newly applied concealer.

“Let me get that.” Kaylie took a washcloth and wiped the makeup from her face. “You know what, Lace? You don’t need makeup. Let’s just get…” She looked at Danica, and Lacy watched as Danica shook her head, silently telling Kaylie to stop trying.

“Come here.” Danica pulled Lacy to her feet and hugged her again. “We can do this, Lacy. Together we can make it through anything. You tell me what you need.”

“Sheila. I need to see her,” Lacy managed.

“Okay, then let’s get you dressed and we’ll go see her.” Danica took her hand and led her into the bedroom.

Kaylie grabbed a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and helped Lacy dress.

Lacy followed the commands of her sisters—Slip your feet into these sandals. Let’s go out to the car. The ride to the hospital was a blur of landscape. Let’s go inside. He’s in the ICU. The elevator hummed beneath her feet. The doors slid open.

Her sisters’ hands found hers. They were warm and small. Safe. They were safe. The antiseptic smell of the ICU made Lacy’s pulse race. The memory of Rob lying in bed with a tube in his mouth, things strapped to his chest and more tubes running from his arm stopped her cold.

“Lacy?” Danica squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, honey. We can wait. When you’re ready, you let me know.”

Ready?

“I texted Max, and Treat arranged for them to let you into the ICU, so take your time. There’s no pressure,” Danica said.

“That’s his room.” Lacy clenched Danica’s and Kaylie’s hands, staring at the entrance to Rob’s room, three doors away from where they stood. A nurse and two people in scrubs rushed past them and flew through Rob’s door.

Kaylie and Danica exchanged a worried glance.

“Kaylie, why don’t you take Lacy to sit down in the waiting room and I’ll go talk to the nurse,” Danica urged.

“Did he die? Oh God. Did he die?” Lacy’s voice rose. “Is he dead?”

Kaylie stared down the hall with wide eyes.

“Kaylie,” Danica snapped. “Take her to the waiting room.”

“No,” Lacy said. She bolted toward Rob’s room. “No. No. He can’t die. I have to help Sheila. No.” She ran toward the door with Danica and Kaylie on her heels, tears streaming down her cheeks, thoughts of Charlie’s and Katie’s sad faces whirling in her mind like a tornado.

Sheila and a nurse came out of the doorway as Lacy arrived.

“We’ll know soon. Give the doctor space. He’s very good. Let him do his thing,” the nurse said.

Sheila noticed Lacy. “Lacy. Oh my God—”

“Is he…” She couldn’t say the word.

“He’s awake. He woke up,” Sheila shrieked. She hugged Lacy. “I was holding his hand and talking to him and I felt his fingers move. I thought it was just me hoping, but then I felt it again, and then his eyelids moved.”

“He’s a-alive?” Lacy asked.

“Alive and awake, Lacy.” Sheila hugged her again. “The doctor’s with him now. Oh God, he’s awake,” she cried.





THEY’D SPENT FORTY-FIVE minutes with Sheila, and during that time, Lacy’s mind and body came back to her. The doctors said that Rob appeared not to have any mental deficits, but his breathing was shallow and he was still being treated prophylactically for aspiration pneumonia. He’d need to remain in the hospital and he’d need the breathing tube until his lungs recovered. He’d been mildly sedated when they’d left, but not before seeing him write a note to Sheila that read, I’m so sorry.

Danica, Kaylie, and Lacy had returned to the cottage, and Rob’s note haunted her. Was he sorry that he’d gone diving again? Sorry that he’d been hurt? Or sorry that he hadn’t listened to Sheila when she’d first begun asking him to change careers?

Kaylie was in the kitchen fixing lunch. Food always helps my kids when they’re upset, she’d said, and Danica had been watching Lacy as if she were about to jump off a bridge.

“You didn’t have to come here, but I’m glad you did,” Lacy said.

“When Max called and told us what had happened, I was worried, but I knew you’d call if you needed us. But then, when we couldn’t reach you and Max said no one could reach Dane, I started to worry,” Danica said.

“Maybe Dane went back home.” Lacy’s voice was just above a whisper. It hurt to say his name, and knowing that he might have left the state brought another wave of sadness. She curled her feet beneath her on the couch. The couch where she’d tried to seduce Dane. Stop it. She swallowed against the lump in her throat.

“Blake called his father’s house and he’s not there,” Danica said.

“No. I meant his home. He lives on a boat in Florida when he’s not traveling,” Lacy said.

Kaylie brought a plate with grilled cheese sandwiches into the living room and set it on the coffee table. “Comfort food,” she said.

“Thanks, Kaylie,” Lacy said.

“Lacy, I don’t want to sound ignorant, but from what Danica shared with me, it sounded as if you and Dane were headed down lover’s lane. Why would Rob’s accident change that?” Kaylie picked up a sandwich and took a bite. “I swear grilled cheese really does help.”

“I’m not sure anything will help this,” Lacy said. “We were heading in that direction, or maybe we had already found the lane and run down it, but Rob’s accident changed everything. After Danica and I talked—Oh God, this hurts so bad.” Tears fell from her eyes. “I love him so much that everything hurts. From my eyes to my stomach to my frigging feet. I ache all over. I miss him so much.”

Danica pulled her close. “I’m sorry.”

Lacy took a deep breath and continued. “We tried to figure out how our relationship could possibly work. He wanted me to travel with him.” She smiled through her tears at the memory of his friendship proposal. Her smile faded as more recent memories invaded her mind. “Then Rob had his accident and I realized—he realized—we both realized that I could give up everything to be with him and something like this could happen. Or worse, he could get killed. Rob was lucky.”