The Heart of Grace. Линда Гуднайт

his eyes but they were too heavy. The drugs, he supposed. Drugs were good, but they didn’t eliminate the pain. They only made him stupid, too groggy to form an intelligent sentence, too relaxed to care.

      The first time he’d awakened after the blast, he’d been in a helicopter. The whump, whump, whump had sent him into violent tremors. Shock, the docs in Germany said.

      Well yes, he was shocked. Getting blown up wasn’t on his list of fun things to do.

      He wondered where his cameras were.

      “Mr. Michaels.” A male voice penetrated the haze. Someone lifted his wrist and felt his pulse. Hard, strong fingers. He wanted the voice to go away but figured he’d slept his allotted quota for the day.

      Around this place fifteen minutes was tops before someone else came along to poke, prod or wheel him off to radiology. He’d been scanned and x-rayed so much he probably glowed in the dark. A radioactive photographer.

      Funny. He had a brief image of using the glow from his body as available light to snap photos. All good photographers experimented with different light sources. And he was good. Really good. Everybody said so. Especially Larissa. She thought he was wonderful.

      Larissa. The sharpest pain yet hit him.

      Did she know how much he loved her? Did she know he was hurt? He hoped not. She’d be upset. He’d already caused her enough trouble.

      The floaty feeling came back and he leaned into it, ready to go where it led. Thinking of Larissa hurt too much to remain conscious.

      “Mr. Michaels.”

      With an inner sigh, Drew resurfaced and managed to raise his eyelids. Squinting at the bright light and too-white room, he saw his tormenter. A doctor. But he wasn’t sure which one. That was one of the problems he’d been having. His memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. Things were a little fuzzy. His head hurt. A lot.

      “I’ve never been in a hospital,” he grumbled.

      “So you told me.”

      He had?

      Eyes wider now, he focused on the physician’s name badge. Dr. Pascal. Neurology. “When can I get out of here?”

      The doctor sidestepped the question with one of his own. “How’s the vision? Any more problems?”

      Drew’s gut lurched. He didn’t like thinking about the hours of blackness that had surrounded him after the blast. “Twenty-twenty.”

      “Let’s have a look.”

      Drew wondered who let’s was. Doctors all seemed to speak as if they were polymorphic. The God complex, he supposed.

      His own drug-twisted humor amused him, but in truth, if he looked at the doc too long, he saw more than one. He sobered instantly. There was nothing funny about that.

      Two were better than none, but still…

      Dr. Pascal’s thick fingers stretched Drew’s eyelids apart while shining a pin light back and forth. Back and forth. The doc smelled like mouthwash and antiseptic soap.

      “No more episodes of blindness? Double vision? Blurriness?”

      “Some,” he admitted, hating the truth but figuring the doc should know. “How long before it goes away for good?”

      “No way to tell. You sustained a pretty nasty concussion, but the CAT scan didn’t indicate anything permanent. If you’re lucky, this will be gone by the time you are dismissed.”

      He’d only been lucky once in his life. The day he’d found Larissa. And look how that turned out.

      If luck was required to heal his vision, he was in deep trouble.

      The jitters in his belly turned to earthquakes. His eyes were everything. A photographer had to see and see clearly.

      “Anything you can do for it?”

      “Time.” The doc fingered something on the bedside table. “And divine intervention, if you believe in such things.”

      Drew raised his pounding head ever so slightly and saw the doctor holding the small pewter fish he usually wore on a leather string around his neck. His hand went to his throat. He never liked to be without it. Someone had been thoughtful enough to realize that.

      “I’m not a religious man.”

      He saw no point in explaining to the doc or anyone else that the ichthus was his only link to the past and to the brothers he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years. Other than this small reminder, he had nothing. He didn’t even know where they were.

      Like Larissa, his brothers were gone.

      Something deep inside him began to ache. He wished the morphine would kick in again.

      The memory of his two brothers, of that last day in the school counselor’s office sometimes overwhelmed him, especially when he was weak or sick or overtired.

      Times like now. For a few painful seconds, Ian and Collin hovered on the edge of his mind.

      Ian, cute and small and loving had probably been adopted. No one could resist that little dude. And Collin. Well, Collin was like him, a survivor. Collin would be okay.

      Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to find them again, to be with his brothers, but he couldn’t. Never would. He was no longer Drew Grace, pitiful child of a crack queen. He was Drew Michaels, successful photographer. He never wanted anyone, especially Larissa, to discover that he was literally nobody—a nobody with a deadly secret and a gutful of guilt.

      Over the years, he’d become a master at forcing his brothers back into the box inside his mind where the past resided.

      He did that now, carefully, painstakingly shutting the door on the childish faces of Ian and Collin Grace.

      “The brain is an interesting organ,” Dr. Pascal said, handing him the necklace without comment.

      Drew reclaimed the ichthus, but didn’t answer. He didn’t know how interesting his brain was and didn’t much care. But he couldn’t afford to lose the one thing that made him a photographer—his eyes.

      “Most visual disturbances resolve as the swelling in your brain returns to normal.”

      Drew swallowed. His throat was raw and scratchy from what the nurses called intubation. Basically, having a tube stuffed down his throat during surgery.

      “And when the problems don’t resolve themselves?” he asked.

      The doctor patted his shoulder. “No use borrowing trouble. You have enough to think about.”

      Drew was not comforted. “What happens next?”

      “In a few days your surgeons and I will look at dismissal. But you’re still weak from the blood loss.”

      “Tell me about it.” He could barely feed himself.

      “Losing your spleen is a serious operation. How’s the incision?”

      “The other docs looked at it this morning. At least, I think it was this morning. They said it was looking good.”

      “You’re fortunate to be healthy and in good physical shape. It probably saved your life.”

      “I’m a survivor,” he said grimly.

      “You’ll need some rehab on the shattered ankle and heel and plenty of time for the broken ribs to mend.”

      “So, are you sending me to one of those rehab places?”

      The doc’s brown eyes crinkled as if he was about to offer Drew the grand prize. “Wouldn’t you rather go home?”

      The question was a kick in the gut. Sure, he’d like to go home. Wherever that was.

      Larissa’s knees trembled as she traversed the long white corridor toward