Текст книги "Rome"
Автор книги: Jay Crownover
Соавторы: Jay Crownover
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
CHAPTER 16
Rome
Everyone at the bar was giving me a pretty wide berth. I came in breathing fire and lit up. I knew my anger was disproportionate to the situation, kind of like it had been when Shaw broke the news to us about Remy, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. I felt like I was losing my grip on things, like whatever I had been building with Cora was crumbling to dust right in front of my eyes. I was so wound up in my own bruised ego, and my own sense of loss, that I knew I was on the brink of spiraling out of control with no way to stop it.
I told myself over and over that we couldn’t agree on a house because we were just two very different people. When it crept up on me that she couldn’t tell me that she loved me, I convinced myself it was because she was still working around the fear Jimmy had left with her. I tried to reason that she was scared to see forever with me because I was still rocky at the whole family and stability thing, but I tried to show her in everything I did, with every dark memory or tortured dream I let her touch, that I was getting there. Watching her face her ex, dismiss him out of hand as insignificant, unimportant, and irrelevant, didn’t give her a wall of excuses to hide behind anymore. I couldn’t get my head around a real reason she might have for not feeling about me the way I did about her until she told him that he’d made her unable to love anyone. I knew she was holding parts of herself back and I understood fear, but I felt hopeless and furious at the idea that she had forced me to open all my hidden places, to bleed all the worst parts of me out in the open for her to see, while she still got to play it safe. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t a way for us to move forward together.
As tempting as it was to just grab a bottle of vodka and disappear into the back room and drown my sorrows, I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I just made sure I kept busy and tried to avoid snapping anyone’s head off needlessly. Asa was watching me closely and running pretty good interference for me. I didn’t know why everyone else thought he was such a shady character; so far he had done nothing but have my back. I would even consider him a friend at this point, so when I got a text from Cora at ten telling me she was in the parking lot and wanted to talk, I just nodded to him even though the bar was packed. The crowd on a Friday night was something to be proud of now, but I was so twisted up about a certain wild-card blonde I didn’t even stop to acknowledge it.
I knew she didn’t want to come in the bar in case I was going to make a scene or because she was worried that I would be unbending and unreasonable. I had given her good cause to believe that, which made me feel like a major jerk. There was no need for her to be cowering in the parking lot like she did something wrong. If she didn’t feel about me the way I felt about her, I was just going to have to accept it and move on. The one thing she had been so instrumental in teaching me was that there was nothing wrong with holding out for what you ultimately decided you deserved. I wanted her, wanted a life with her and the baby, but she needed to want me on the same level or it wasn’t enough.
I saw the bright green car parked next to my truck. When she caught sight of me making my way toward her, she climbed out of the driver’s side and started to make her way toward me. I was going to tell her to just follow me inside, that I would have Darcy make her something to snack on while we talked. I never got the chance because I heard the roar of Harley pipes at the same time all my oh, shit instincts fired up. I saw her head whip around, felt time slow down the way it did when danger and doom were breaking on the horizon, so I did what I had been trained to do. I knew what gunshots sounded like. Knew not to panic, but never had I been so scared. I had been shot at plenty of times. I had never had to worry about someone I loved getting shot, though. It made me move faster than I ever had in my life.
I sprinted across the asphalt like it was made of lava. I got to her right before the first bullet made contact. My head jerked back and blood started immediately rushing down the column of my neck and soaking into the collar of my T-shirt. I saw her wild eyes go huge in her face but didn’t have time to say anything to her. I was lucky she made such a tiny target because the next gunshot didn’t miss either, nor did the next as I took her to the ground under me. I’d been hit with bullets before, but had always had body armor to dull the impact. Bullets tearing through unprotected flesh felt like Satan flicking his tail across bare skin. My flesh burned and the calm night air instantly filled with the coppery scent of my blood. Man, there was a lot of it. I could see it flowing out of me and onto her and the pavement below her. How could have I forgotten there was a pissed-off biker all set to get vengeance on me? Cora shouldn’t have been in that parking lot alone.
I had her whole body under me. Could feel her shaking and whispering my name against my throat. I hoped I hadn’t hit the ground with her too hard, but I couldn’t move to check on her. In fact I knew I needed to get off of her so I wasn’t crushing her into the hard ground, but none of my limbs were obeying my commands. In fact her lovely and beloved face was blurring in and out as breath wheezed in and out of lungs that felt like they were suddenly full of cement. I was suffocating. I was bleeding. I was hurting all over, but she was looking up at me in shock and fear but alive. So full of life and color, and that was all that mattered.
“Cora …” I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That I would never be done with her, not ever, but there wasn’t a way to do that. I was going under. I could feel blood pooling under us. Could feel fire blazing in more than one place from my prone body. I think Cora screamed my name over and over again. I think I heard Asa tell her he was calling for help. I was pretty sure my little pixie had a death grip on me where I covered her, but I couldn’t feel anything. I was also fairly certain my girl was about to watch me die, and the last thing I heard before it all just went absolutely black was her tell me that she loved me over and over again.
“Always have to be the hero, don’t you?”
His tone was kidding, but it had been so long since I had seen him that all I could do was gape at him in shock.
“Rem?”
“Who else? Got yourself in a bit of a pickle, didn’t ya?”
I tried to shake my head, tried to reach out and put my hands on him, but all I could do was just stare at him while he paced back and forth in front of me, hands shoved into the pockets of impeccably pressed, pin-striped pants. He looked good, way better than a guy who had been dead going on five years should.
“You look good, bro.”
He smiled at me. A smile so different from Rule’s, and I felt my heart flip over. I missed him so much.
“I always looked good, Rome. We need to have a serious heart-to-heart, big brother.”
“About what?”
“You.”
“What about me, Remy?”
“You seriously have any doubts over whether I knew, absolutely, without any kind of shadow of a doubt that you loved me, Rome? That you were proud of me?”
I felt something happen in my chest, like lightning burning where my heart should be.
“I should have told you. I shouldn’t have asked you to keep an eye on them. That was selfish.”
“Oh, Rome.” It sounded like a sigh, but I wasn’t sure what was going on or where I was at, so maybe it was just the last of my breath escaping my no longer working lungs. “I was always so proud when you asked me to keep an eye on Rule or on Shaw. It meant you trusted me, you believed that I could do as good a job as you always did keeping everyone safe. Those words meant more to me than you can know.”
I took a minute to let that process and heard him laugh. It sounded happy and there was no regret in it.
“The girl, the one you just took three bullets for, she’s the one for you.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t feel obligated to answer him. “You don’t think she loves you? You don’t think her heart is breaking right now? Because I can assure you that it is and it has nothing to do with being afraid of having to raise that baby alone. She’s scared for you. Her heart is shattering for you.”
I tried to scowl but I didn’t have any control of my facial muscles.
“She’s never said anything to me.”
“But don’t you just know, Rome? Just like I knew you loved me without question. Love doesn’t always have to be spoken out loud. Shaw loved Rule from the beginning of time and never said one word about it, but if he had ever bothered to look at her, he would have seen it shining out of her like a beacon. The same thing can be said about your little spitfire. It’s stamped all over her, Rome, you just have to look past the fear, hers and your own, to see it.”
That point was burning and hot in the center of where I thought my chest was. I knew all about fear. The fear of the unknown, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not having anything to offer. I hoped I hid it well, but I hadn’t taken one second to think that maybe Cora was hiding behind a cloud of terror as well. Our experience made us; what we did with that knowledge is what defined who we were going to be, and somewhere along the line I got caught up in all the noise of “what if” and forgot that.
“I should have just known.”
“You have time to make it right.”
“I do?”
He laughed again and I felt warmth embrace me, something like rightness settle around my shoulders.
“Someone had to set you right. I knew I could do it. Love is never perfect, big brother. It’s what you make of the imperfections in it that makes the ride worthwhile.”
“I met Lando.”
That sound that could have been a sigh or something else whirled around me.
“He is how I know all about unconditional love, Rome. He deserved better than my secrets. Frankly everyone did. Who we are is always shifting, turning, and changing. Soon you’ll be a father, a husband, then an uncle, and then later on down the line, you’ll be a grandfather. Who you are never stays the same. It’s called living life.”
I felt like if I could control any part of my body, I would wrap my arms around my brother and never let him go, but as it was, things inside me were starting to burn and those pale, winter-tinted eyes were getting hazier and farther and farther away and I was flared up on the inside like an inferno.
“Oh, and Rome.” I tried to focus on him but it was getting harder and harder to hold on to where I was at. Pain was starting to pull me apart at the seams and I wanted to scream. “Remy is an awesome name for either a little boy or a little girl. Just saying.”
I felt rather than saw him disappear, the warmth, the joy that was my brother, poofed away and I went crashing back to a body that was on fire with pain and flooding with blood in places there shouldn’t be blood.
CHAPTER 17
Cora
I didn’t remember much of anything after I hit the ground, all of Rome’s weight and bulk pressing me into the hard asphalt. One second I had been sitting in the car trying to figure out how to talk my way out of this mess and try to fix everything, and the next I was wide-awake in the middle of one of Rome’s nightmares.
I had sent the text letting him know I was outside the bar, and then I waited while I held my breath for him to answer me back. My big mouth had hurt the one person I never wanted to cause pain, and I needed to fix it. It didn’t matter if he ignored me. I would march right in that bar and make him talk to me. As it turned out, I was getting all worked up for no reason because it only took a minute until his unmistakable silhouette came out the door and he was making his way toward where I had parked. I was nervous, but more than that, I was filled with regret. I never should have held on to what Jimmy had done to me and used it as an excuse to keep my heart insulated from all the wonderful things Rome was trying to fill it up with.
I only made it past the hood of the Cooper when there was a sudden roar that sounded like it was right behind me. I went to turn my head to see what it was because it was so loud, but before I got my neck cranked all the way around, I was bulldozed to the ground and deafened by the repeated pop-pop that sounded like extra-loud fireworks. I hit the ground with a grunt and clung to Rome, because those blue eyes were huge in his face and a typhoon of panic and fear was working its way across the shimmering surface.
“Rome?” I said his name because he wasn’t moving and something warm and wet was seeping into his T-shirt where I was gripping it in my hands.
His mouth moved. He said my name on a gasp but no sound came out. Something coppery-smelling and hot landed on my cheek as it leaked out of his neck and splatted on my face. His eyes flickered like a flame going out, and the next thing I knew I was trapped completely under him as all his strength fled. His blood was covering both of us and starting to pool on the ground beneath us. I couldn’t get to my phone, couldn’t move, because even when he was unconscious, even when he was furious at me and hurt by my selfish and thoughtless words, he was still trying to keep me and our baby safe.
“Rome!” This time I screamed it and clutched at him. “You have to open your eyes. Come on, big guy.”
I was screaming his name over and over but he wouldn’t move, wouldn’t react. I’m sure we were only there for a minute, but it felt like an eternity until Asa’s blond head appeared over Rome’s prone form and he told me he had called the police and an ambulance was on the way. It took three of the regulars to move him off of me, in part because I refused to let him go. I was crying and had so much of his blood on my hands it made it hard for me to hold on to him as the regulars from the bar worked to separate us and put pressure on the gaping wounds that were spilling his life out onto the ground.
I think Asa put an arm around my quaking shoulders and tried to tell me everything would be all right, but I knew that was a lie. Through the tears and Rome’s blood smeared all across my face, I could see that his eyes were still closed and that his massive chest wasn’t moving up and down. He was going to die right in front of my eyes, and I was never going to get the chance to tell him that I loved him. I absolutely couldn’t let that happen.
I broke free of Asa’s grasp and ran to where people were trying desperately to stop him from bleeding. The entire side of his neck looked like raw hamburger, flayed open and gushing vital red onto the ground. I fell on my knees, not caring that the asphalt ripped my skin open, and put my hands on his cheeks.
“Rome, please open your eyes, please. I love you so much. I need you. Please, big guy.” I was sobbing and I doubted the words made any sense. Somewhere in the distance I finally heard the sounds of sirens screaming toward us. The ambulance was too far away to do him any good.
“I love you, I love you, I love you.” I just told him over and over again, trying to will him to breathe. Because it was true. Being scared of handing over my heart to him because I wasn’t sure what he would do with it had nothing on the choking fear that I would never get to tell him how I felt because he wasn’t going to make it. He had always been a hero, and right now I almost hated him as much as I loved him. If he hadn’t been so perfect, so honorable, so devoted to me and his child, he wouldn’t be lying in a puddle of blood. It was just wrong on so many different levels.
“Please don’t break my heart, Rome. I can’t do this without you.” Somewhere along the line, police and the ambulance crew arrived, and again I had hands trying to pull me away from him. I bent down and put my mouth to his. I cried even harder when I felt how cold his lips were.
I kissed him, tasting the salt of my tears and the iron burn of his blood, and whispered that I loved him again and again. I had to succumb to the impatient hands of the female paramedic that pulled me away from him. I couldn’t take my eyes off his deathly-still face and his unmoving chest.
“We got him, honey.”
I shot my gaze to hers. “He has to be okay.”
“We’ll do everything in our power to make that possible. The blond hottie said you’re pregnant and that you might be hurt. We need you to get checked out.”
I shook my head vehemently. “No. Just worry about him.”
The medic opened her mouth to argue, when there was suddenly a gasp and Rome’s bright blue eyes shot open only to flutter immediately closed again.
“Cora …” My name was just a whisper of sound, but it was enough to have me screaming his name again and to have everyone moving twice as fast as they had before. The paramedics had him on a stretcher and in the back of the ambulance in no time flat.
They didn’t say a word when I scrambled in after them. I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight until I knew for sure he was going to be okay. There was just so much blood and it wouldn’t stop flowing out of the holes that decorated his entire right side.
The female paramedic was all business as she went about hooking an IV into him and started to cut his clothes off so that she could work on getting all that blood to stop pouring out of him. She kept talking to him, telling him over and over that he had to fight, that he couldn’t leave me and the baby. She was rattling off info about the shooter and the bikers, but all of it was a dull buzz. I just wanted him to open his eyes and look at me. She told me to hold his hand, to let him know I was there. Once again the thing I was best at, talking, using words, had fled. All I could do was stare at him and cry. He was my entire world, he was everything I ever wanted, and it was going to turn my heart to stone if I didn’t get the opportunity to tell him that.
Suddenly the paramedic swore and started moving around frantically. Her sharp tone cut through my haze of despair. She told me I had better convince Rome to stay with us because my stubborn soldier wasn’t listening to her. I squeezed his hand, leaned over him and kissed that scar on his forehead. I told him everything, begged him to open his eyes. I told him that he had done his job and fought for me and the baby; now it was time to fight for himself. I would pull him back from the brink of death over and over again if that was what it took to keep him with me. I didn’t think it was doing any good, but when the ambulance rolled to a stop outside the hospital, I saw his eyes flutter open again. He didn’t look good and it didn’t take a medical professional to see that he had lost way too much blood, but those eyes were bright and looking right at me, so I made sure that if it was the last time he saw me, the last thing I ever got to say to him, I would make it matter. There was no way Rome Archer was going to fade away again without me telling him I loved him and needed him.
CHAPTER 18
Rome
“There’s those pretty baby blues. Keep fighting, big man, we’re almost to the hospital.”
I didn’t recognize the voice or the girl who spoke them. She was hovering over my head and I was having a hard time tracking her. I hurt all over and I couldn’t breathe. I was trying to suck air in and out but it didn’t seem to be working. I vaguely heard the sirens overhead blaring and the radio in the ambulance squawking. I couldn’t feel anything other than the hot blaze of pain from the top of my head to wherever my toes were.
“You have some pretty powerful friends. The guy that pulled the trigger already got picked up. I guess he was so scared of what the Sons of Sorrow would do when they found out he shot you, he took his happy ass to the station and turned himself in. Idiot. I guess he doesn’t know how many Sons are doing time.”
She prattled on and on while moving all around me. I didn’t care about the guy that shot me, I cared about Cora. I didn’t know if one of the bullets had gone through me and hit her, didn’t know how hard I had taken her to the ground, didn’t know if the baby was okay … The thoughts ran around and around and I couldn’t hold on to any of it anymore. The pain was too much. I couldn’t get any air and I was tired. So tired, and I felt some of the fire licking across my skin start to dull.
“Hey now, soldier, none of that.” The girl’s voice rose and slapped across me. I thought I heard another sound, a whimper or something that sounded like a wounded animal, but I couldn’t turn my head or even move my eyes to track the noise. They wouldn’t even open when I commanded them to. Something clamped on my hands and squeezed. I was surprised I could feel it amid the living fire that was scorching me up from the inside out.
“You didn’t make it all the way home to have some punk take you out. You need to fight. You got too much riding on coming out of this battle a winner. Fight.”
This chick was good at her job. Had I not been on the brink of death, I would have admired her a lot more. I didn’t know how she knew what I had to lose—my girl, my baby, a future and a family that I was finally, at the worst possible time, starting to understand that I deserved. It was all beyond worth fighting for, but I was so tired and I needed air. It was so much easier to just close my eyes and let the pain and fire take me.
“Shit, he’s crashing.” The stranger’s voice rose and everything around me started to fade away once again. I could hear Remy screaming at me to stop being an idiot, could hear my heart starting to slow down, and felt the pain start to drag me under and the fire shift from hot to freezing cold. “Honey, you better convince your man to stay with us, because he isn’t listening to me.”
Something jabbed into my side and into my arm and the stranger’s voice vanished to be replaced with the one I think I had been searching for all along.
“Rome.” She sounded like she was crying but I couldn’t pry my eyes open to look at her. “Come on, Captain No-Fun, I need you to look at me.” She sounded so sad, so scared, and it pissed me off there was nothing I could do to make her feel any better. I wanted to look at her, but it was hard. My eyes were so heavy. I felt soft hands stroke along my jaw, across my forehead and trace the scar that was there. “I can’t tell you thank you for saving my life while you aren’t looking at me, big guy. You saved us, me and the baby. Now I need you to save yourself. Come on, Rome, you can’t leave us now. You need to wake up so I can tell you how much I love you.”
I never wanted to leave her, not even when I was mad at her and acting like an idiot. I wanted to apologize for flying off the handle like a hothead, wanted to make sure that if I didn’t make it, my last words to her were words of love, words that expressed how important she had been in bringing me back to myself. I wanted her to know that I thought she was as close to perfect as I was ever going to get. I just couldn’t do it. My eyes wouldn’t open. My limbs wouldn’t work and I still needed air and felt like I was in a vacuum where there was none.
Something wet and warm slid across my face. I thought it was just more blood, but then it dripped more, slow and steady, and I heard Cora’s soft sob. I didn’t want her to be sad about anything. I wanted her to be happy and safe, to know that I loved her. It took every ounce of strength I had left, every morsel of fight I possessed, to pry my eyes open to look at her, and when I did the pain slammed back into me full force, enough to make me gasp and to have moisture flooding my eyes. I had never felt anything like this. I was turned inside out and losing my grasp on reality fast. I was sinking in pain and suffocating on lack of air.
Her eyes were liquid blue and brown. She was crying and her blond hair was stained pink with what had to be my blood. She was pale as a ghost and her hands were shaking where she was touching my face. Our gazes locked and her mouth broke into a trembling grin.
“Please be okay. You have to be okay. I love you so much, Rome.” She was pleading with me but there was nothing I could do to reassure her.
The movement of the ambulance stopped and the strange voice was back.
“We’re here. We gotta get him into surgery.”
I wanted to scream when Cora’s unusual eyes were replaced with the stranger’s. I was moving but I wanted my girl. The sky flashed overhead for a brief second and then all I could see was white ceiling tiles and industrial lights, what I didn’t see anymore was Cora and she was all I wanted.
“I thought I told you to stop messing around with angry bikers.” The pretty nurse with the gray eyes was now hovering over my bedside. She was more familiar but she still wasn’t who I wanted. “They’re ready for him in the OR; just take him back. We need to prep and get him under like yesterday.”
I wanted to scream that I needed my girl, that she had to know I was going to be okay, but I was poked and prodded some more and then there was no more fire, no more ice, there was just darkness, and I was gone.
“Rome Archer, if you don’t wake up right this second so I can tell you that I love you, I swear I’m going to name this baby something ridiculous like Daffodil or Rover and I’m going to let your brother be in charge of haircuts until he or she is old enough to complain.”
I could breathe again. It hurt, I mean really, really hurt, but my lungs seemed to be inflating and deflating on their own. I cracked an eye open and immediately wished I hadn’t because the light behind Cora’s head made me nauseous. I tried to say something back to her but there was something shoved in my mouth, so all I could do was look up at her and blink. She was really just a colorful blur against a bunch of stuff shifting in and out of focus.
She was still crying, or maybe crying again, but I was pretty sure she had told me that she loved me, so it didn’t matter. I felt her hand on mine and then the redheaded nurse was next to her checking out the machine that was beeping somewhere over my head.
“There he is. You have more lives than a cat, Mr. Archer. You sure are one lucky guy. Not a lot of people could lose that much blood and still be with us. I told your girlfriend to go buy as many lottery tickets as she could.”
I sure was lucky, but it didn’t have anything to do with getting shot and surviving. It had everything to do with the woman holding on to my hand and looking at me like I was some kind of miracle. The nurse turned to Cora and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Honey, he’s awake. You need to go take care of yourself and that baby. This is a huge hurdle crossed. We can’t take him off the ventilator until we know that lung is stable, so he won’t be able to talk to you for a while still. Go home. Take a nap. He’s in good hands. Plus there is a waiting room full of people out there waiting to see him. He won’t be alone. I promise you.”
I saw Cora blink. She looked awful … well, she looked wonderful and she had said she loved me. Even if it was just the painkillers I was sure they were pumping into me that made me think she said it, it was good enough. She smiled at the pretty nurse and bent over to kiss my temple.
“But he’s mine.” Her voice broke and I managed just barely to move my fingers under her death grip.
The nurse offered up a very kind smile. She really was a stunningly pretty girl and her genuine kindness just seemed to pour out of those soft gray eyes. When Cora mumbled her name in aggravation, I thought that Saint really was a fitting name for her. She seemed blessed with infinite patience.
“I know, sweetheart, but you aren’t doing him or your baby any favors by not taking care of yourself. It’s been a couple days, hon. This is all good news, trust me. He didn’t save your life just to have you pass out on us and end up in a bed next to his. Trust me. It’s not every woman who can actually say her man took a bullet for her.” There was a strain of envy in the nurse’s tone. “You’re just as lucky as he is. Now go take a breather. I got your fella.”
I couldn’t agree or disagree, but then Cora was hanging over my face and all I could see was her different-colored eyes. The turquoise one was glowing so bright I could see her heart in it, the brown one was all velvety and warm and I could see my future plain as day. She leaned over and kissed me on the plastic machine helping me breathe in and out. I think that made me jealous of some kind of medical machinery. She brushed a thumb over my eyebrow and smiled at me. Remy was right: actions were important. I needed to pay closer attention.
“I was so mad that you kept getting the last word in every argument we seem to have, but this—good Lord, Rome, this is an extreme way to win a fight.” I would have laughed if I was capable of it. “I love you. I need you to know that. Please know that. What I said to Jimmy … it was stupid and thoughtless. I was acting as dumb as he was. I’ve loved you from the beginning; I was just too cowardly to admit it. You’re my family, my everything, Rome, you have to know that.”
Her voice dropped an octave and tears flooded her eyes again. All I could do was blink up at her. I knew it before she said it. I was just being a typical stubborn and blind guy. She kissed me on the forehead again and disappeared after telling me she would be back as soon as she could. She must have been exhausted because my girl didn’t acquiesce that easily.
The nurse was back. She was taking my vitals and writing things down in my chart. She looked down at me and smiled.
“That is one fireball of a girlfriend you got there. The OR team was drawing straws to see who would go out and update her and your family. I think she actually had them scared.”
Sounded like my girl.
“One bullet in the neck that magically misses your carotid artery, another one that shattered a rib and deflated your lung, and lastly one that lodged in your thigh just millimeters from your femoral artery … you look like Swiss cheese, but you are so incredibly fortunate to be alive.”
