page97 (1/1)
She’s alive, a little voice whispered in Cody’s head She’s alive! “Is she conscious? Can I see her?”
“You can see her, subject to certain conditions, but she’s not conscious We’ve medically induced a co out of that for some time”
“What conditions?”
“We try to keep the ICU—the intensive care unit—as sterile as possible, to minimize the risk of infection to the patient But we don’t exclude a patient’s loved ones—even though she’s in a coht be able to hear you We can’t quantify how eon made a face of frustration “It does help I’ve seen it myself”
“I need to see her,” Cody said simply
The surgeon nodded “One of the ICU nurses will tell you what you need to do”
Ten arb, Cody walked into the dimly lit roo readouts and doing things to various pieces of equipue renored her
He walked to the bed and gazed down at Keira with love welling inside hi there; readout wires attached everywhere, a saline drip connected via a clear plastic tube to her ar tube in place Her chest rose and fell, the movement slow and measured But she was alive
They’d washed all the blood away, and she was deathly pale, whichof freckles on her nose and cheeks stand out Her red-gold curls were subdued beneath a paper cap, and her expressive brown eyes were closed, but she was still his darling And she was alive
He started to take her hand but caught himself and asked the ICU nurse, “Can I touch her?”
“So long as you don’t interfere with anything connected to her,” the nurse reassured hies”
His left hand enfolded Keira’s left hand, the only part of her he dared touch as he stood by her bedside There were so ht of while he’d been waiting to hear if she’d survived—love s to which he desperately wanted to hear her say, “I will” in response—but the presence of the nurse inhibited him
Instead he squeezed Keira’s hand and said, “I’m here” She didn’t respond, but he hadn’t expected her to The fingers of his right hand brushed gently against her cheek She never stirred, but her skin arm to the touch That meant she was alive
He glanced at her right chest and shoulder swathed in bandages, and relived in slowin front of Callahan, firing her weapon His own anguished cry of rage and denial The bullet sla her to the ground Callahan firing his S his Glock’s thirty-three-round clip with deadly intent and even deadlier accuracy
The veneer of civilization had vanished in that instant; he had wanted nothing more than to obliterate the men who had shot his wo like when he’d helped kill Pennington, the only other tiht he was too late to protect Keira; but he could avenge her And he did
Now as he stood watching each breath Keira drew he accepted that he was only human after all His conscience troubled hi he could do about it Deal with it, he told his conscience, re hi Deal with it
Not every ht, but Callahan would Cody drew a se He felt a kinship with the other man, almost as if they were brothers Maybe, in a sense, they were They both knehat it was like to love a woe of deathand beyond And each of the to kill or die to keep his woman safe The only difference was Callahan had saved Mandy every time Cody had saved Keira twice, but