Their Child?. Karen Rose Smith

T. Tate lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss on the fingers twined so tightly with his.

      The two women returned with a stack of bar towels, what looked like neatly folded tablecloths—and a bowl of water.

      “Water,” said the doc. “Wonderful.”

      One of the women spoke up. “There’s a laundry room, down the hall. The sink faucet in there is still working.”

      “Excellent.” Flannigan wet a towel. “Let’s see if we can get a better look here…” He dabbed at the bloody mess over Lori’s eye.

      About then, the club manager elbowed his way toward them from the other direction.

      Tate said, “Well?”

      The manager actually dared a smile. “The outside exit is clear. We can get out, no problem. Plus, there are choppers overhead and we heard sirens. Help is definitely on the way.”

      The E.M.T.s came down the corridor from the outside exit to get Lori. They loaded her onto a stretcher, carried her out and put her in the ambulance. They were headed for Tate Memorial, the hospital that Ol’ Tuck had generously endowed. Memorial was big enough to have state-of-the-art machinery, its own E.R. and a surgeon with a solid handle on head trauma.

      Tucker insisted on riding in the ambulance. Nobody—not Heck, Enid or Lena—argued with his right to be the one to stay with her.

      He spoke to Brody before he climbed into the back of the big white van. “Your mom is going to come through this just fine.”

      The boy looked small and lost, standing there in the darkness and the drizzling rain in front of the collapsed ruin of what had once been the clubhouse. He asked, doubt in every word, “How do you know for sure?”

      Somehow, Tucker managed a grin. “Trust me. I’m not letting anything happen to her.”

      Brody surged forward and grabbed him around the waist, hugging him hard. “Promise?” he whispered, his nose squashed into Tucker’s chest. “Promise?”

      Tucker hugged him back, his own throat locking up, surprised at the strength in the young arms around him. Damn, he thought, what a kid. He coughed to clear the tightness away. “Absolutely. I swear it.”

      One of the E.M.T.s spoke from the bed of the open van. “Mr. Bravo. We’ve got to get moving.”

      Brody’s arms dropped away. He swiped at his nose with the back of his hand.

      Heck, who stood a few feet away with Enid, Lena and Dirk, moved close enough to wrap a beefy arm around Brody’s shoulder. “We’ll be there at the hospital to meet you.”

      Tucker nodded, climbed into the van, and turned to look out at Lori’s family. They were wet and bedraggled, the hem of Lena’s beautiful white dress trailing in the mud, Brody, Heck and Dirk sans jackets, with ties askew and shirts pulled half out of their trousers. Only Enid was crying, silent tears that tracked down haggard cheeks already wet with rain.

      Then the med tech pulled the doors shut. The driver started the engine and off they went.

      Tucker stayed out of the way as best he could in the cramped space. The E.M.T.s tended their patient, cleaning the wound, hooking her up to an IV drip, keeping close watch on her vital signs and communicating via radio with the hospital, so all would be ready for her when they arrived.

      Watching them, so focused and efficient, Tucker found he felt a little bit calmer himself.

      As soon as they had Lori settled, one of the E.M.T.s told him that the clubhouse, south of town and surrounded by a golf course, tennis courts, pool, formal grounds and beyond all that, acres of open land all around, was the only structure that had been hit. As far as they knew, Lori’s was the sole injury—at least, so far.

      In midride, the miracle Tucker didn’t realize he’d been praying for happened.

      Lori let out a low groan—and opened her eyes. Tucker, at the foot of the narrow portable cot where she lay, was right there waiting to give her a smile.

      “Tucker?” She blinked and licked her lips and tried to lift the hand with the IV needle stuck in the back of it. She groaned again. “What…?”

      “Easy, Mrs. Taylor…”

      “It’s all right, you’re safe…” Making soothing noises, the E.M.T.s closed in.

      Tucker craned to the side, so she could see him around the med techs bending close. “You were hit on the head—but you’re going to be okay.”

      She asked, weakly, “Brody?”

      “Safe,” he told her. “He’s with your folks. And as far as we know, everyone else is okay, too.”

      “Good,” she whispered. “Good…”

      Three hours later, near midnight, Tucker, Lena and Dirk sat in Memorial’s main waiting room. Heck and Enid had taken Brody home. But Lena, still dressed in her limp wedding finery, said she was going nowhere until she was certain that Lori would be okay. Dirk kept close to his bride.

      Tucker sat across from the newlyweds, his elbows braced on the chair arms, a paper cup of bad coffee balanced on his belly and his legs stretched out in front of him. He stared down at his scuffed dress shoes, not really seeing them.

      Not seeing or thinking of anything, really.

      Except Lori.

      After she woke in the ambulance, she’d remained conscious: a good sign, the doctor had told them. In the hours since they arrived at the hospital, they’d done an MRI. It showed no evidence of a skull fracture, or of epidural or subdural hematoma: no blood on the brain, which could cause swelling and brain damage.

      The wound had required twenty stitches, but the doctor said things were looking good. They would keep her at Memorial through the night for observation, just to be on the safe side. In the morning, barring complications, she would be released.

      As Tucker sat there regarding his shoes, the hospital staff was in the process of moving her to a regular room. Once they had her settled, Tucker was planning to make sure they let him and Lena in to see her one more time, for a minute or two at least. If he got lucky, he might even be allowed to pull up a chair and stay the night. Tucker sipped the bitter hospital coffee, stared at his shoes some more, and hoped only for that: to be allowed to spend the night slouched in an uncomfortable chair in the room where Lori slept.

      He was more certain than ever now. She was the woman for him. He marveled at himself. Until Lori, he realized, he’d never been all that certain of much of anything.

      Fourteen days had gone by since his first real sight of her, at the Gas ‘n Go. He’d held her in his arms only once—and still, he knew. Lori Lee Taylor was meant for him. And the very thought that he had almost lost her so soon after finding her…

      Uh-uh. Not to be considered. It couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it.

      And it wasn’t happening, so he could stop worrying about it. The doctor had as good as promised them that she was going to pull through okay.

      Across the short expanse of dark blue commercial carpet that covered the floor of the waiting area, in the chair next to Dirk’s, Lena stretched and yawned. She leaned close to Dirk and whispered something in his ear.

      Dirk grunted.

      Lena, sliding a look at Tucker, nodded. “Oh, my yes. I know I’m right…”

      Tucker sat up a little straighter and slugged back another gulp of bad coffee. “What?”

      Lena braced her elbows on her knees and craned her head forward. She looked at him measuringly through those blue eyes so exactly like Lori’s—but still, strangely, not like Lori’s at all. “I think this is probably a dumb question. I mean, considering everything that’s happened tonight. But, Tucker, I’m gonna ask it straight out, anyway. Are you in love with my sister?”

      One