Tank (Moonshine Task Force Book 2)(6)
“Let it out and let it go, because I’m gonna need you babe, more than I’ve ever needed you before. If you’re serious about us being together, then I’m going to want you with me every step of the goddamn way, and there’s gonna be a lot of steps. A lot of long days. If you’re in this for the long haul, I need you to be all in.”
She sobs against me nodding as I talk to her, holding my hospital gown tightly between her fingers, and when my voice breaks too much I can’t speak anymore. I let the tears fall too, because damn if I haven’t realized just how close I’ve come to dying.
And I haven’t done half the shit I want to do yet. It’s most definitely not my time, and I’ll never waste another second of what I do have with this redhead lying next to me.
CHAPTER THREE
Blaze
“With him, I wouldn’t be good driving. I wanna be back here, making sure he’s comfortable until we hand his care over.”
Logan nods, and we race like hell for the helipad where the air evac will meet us to take him to the nearest trauma center an hour away. I administer anything and everything I can to make him more comfortable, watching his low blood pressure and heart rate with a critical eye.
Suddenly his already low pressure begins dropping. “Trevor!” My hands shake, and for the first time, I don’t know what to do. My normally instinctual training is gone and I’m scared to death. “Don’t do this to me,” I look around in the back of the ambulance, everything looking foreign to me.
His blood pressure drops further, beeps going off everywhere and I’m lost. Tears are streaming down my face and I’m hyperventilating, unsure of what to do to help him. He’s dying in front of me, and I can’t help him.
I gasp, jerking awake so hard that I fall off the cot I’ve been sleeping on the past few days here in the hospital. As my body connects with the hard floor, I cry out, hopefully not loud enough for Trevor to hear, but it’s enough to get me out of the nightmare I was living in my dream world. Exhausted, I glance at the clock, seeing it’s six am. I’ve gotten maybe four hours of sleep, but I know I won’t be able to drift back.
Leaning over Trevor, I check to make sure he’s breathing and alive before I grab my purse and head downstairs. After the nightmare I just had, I don’t trust the machines. Coffee sounds really good right about now.
*
I’m sitting outside Trevor’s hospital room, my knees drawn up to my chest, head down, and crying. I’m not sure why I’m crying. Maybe it’s from relief that Trevor is going to be okay, stress from everything we’ve been through since the call went out, or just the emotional release I need after being at his side for the past few days.
Today, he gets to come home. Surprising everyone, he’s healing quicker than any of us imagined he would. Proof of how stubborn he is.
Getting up and moving away from the door, I walk down the hallway to where there’s a glass window spanning from floor to ceiling. Whoever wants to can look out over the Birmingham skyline. It’s peaceful. Up here, I can’t hear the bustling of the street, the roar of the cars, or the impatient honking horns of the drivers. It makes the noise in my head louder, letting the memories of what I saw when I got to Trevor’s truck force their way into my awake hours. The silence rings loudly between my ears and I want to scream at it to go away.
Try as I might, I can’t get the image of Trevor’s face when I first saw him at the crash site out of my mind. I can sleep for a few hours every night, but sometime during the slumber the vision comes to me and the ending to the story changes dramatically. I jerk awake quickly and then have to look at him for myself, just to make sure he’s okay.
When he was first brought to the trauma center, I wasn’t sure if he’d make it home, but like everything Trevor does, he’s excelled. Being in good shape helped, being stubborn definitely helped, but last night he told me I helped more than anything.
The strength of our feelings scares the hell out of me. When you’re faced with the possible death of the person you love most in this world, you realize what you have and what you value. It’s thrown into your face with the velocity of a major league pitcher’s fast ball, and you either duck out of the way or you take the hit head on. We’re both taking the hit head on, and we both want this second chance, me more than anything. I messed up once with someone in my life, I don’t want to mess up again, but I need him to see me for the woman I am. I need him to really look and accept me for who I am. I’m scared I’ll have to go into a dangerous situation again and then we’ll be back to square one. We both want it to work, but is it that simple? Can we both put aside thought patterns ingrained in us for years? I guess we’ll have to find out together.
“Blaze!”
I turn around and look down the hallway, seeing Whitney walking toward me. Actually it’s more like a waddle, but she’s making it. She’s been a trooper through this whole ordeal, coming to the hospital every day and staying until Ryan forces her to go home at night. I meet her halfway so she doesn’t have to make the entire length by herself.
“Hey,” I greet her with a hug. I may not have known her before all this started, but she’s become one of my favorite people in a short amount of time. She listens when I talk – whether I want to vent, remember, or cry – and she doesn’t judge me for what happened with Trevor before the wreck.