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  “You’re fuckin’ shitting me,” Ford whispered.

  “Holy fuck,” Banner said.

  “Oh my God.”

  That was from an older woman in the doorway.

  I smiled at the woman that had to be Viddy, Ford’s mother.

  “Hello,” I said, holding out my hand.

  That was when she ran and hit me like a battering ram.

  I had to say, I was good with my prosthetics, but there were still times that I sucked, kind of like right now.

  I would’ve gone flat on my ass had someone not come up behind me and practically acted as a bumper to keep me upright.

  When I looked back, it was to see the older version of Ford holding me up.

  He was about my height—so about six one or so—but his eyes were so fuckin’ intense.

  But then the woman started crying and threw her arms around my waist and continuously said ‘thank you’ over and over and over, so I had to break the stare and comfort the woman.

  “Ummm.” I didn’t know what to say. “Help?”

  Ford laughed and pulled his mother off of me, slinging his arm around her shoulder.

  That was when Banner hit me.

  I gave the younger guy a manly slap on the back, finding that I liked him. I could really see the Spurlock resemblance now after seeing the mother.

  I looked over at the man at my back who had to be Ford’s dad, waiting for him to get in on the action next, and he laughed.

  The scary looking bastard laughed.

  “Let’s go in and meet my girl. She’s probably wondering what we’re all doing out here without her,” Trance ordered.

  Moments later, we entered the room, and I found out that he was right. Oakley’s eyes were on the door, waiting and watching.

  The moment our eyes met, I felt what could only be described as a jolt straight to my heart.

  I started to sweat, and swear to God, I felt like my knees went weak.

  Her pale blonde hair was braided into two braids that went down either side of her shoulders. Her eyes still looked tired, and she was still pale.

  But she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  Then my girl smiled.

  ***

  Oakley

  I frowned and looked around the room, wondering where everyone had gone.

  My mother had been standing next to the door, talking to Ford who was on the phone with my electric company complaining about the fact that nobody had been home in a month and my bill was astronomical.

  My mother was texting back and forth with a few of my clients—I was an assistant for multiple authors—making sure they knew that I was about to be out of the office for at least a week. And then she’d disappeared in a flash, a cry leaving her when she did.

  That was when I started to stare at the door, wondering what in the hell had happened.

  I was on the verge of getting up to investigate—even though I was weak as a baby kitten—when he came in.

  At first, it was the click-click of metal on tile that had my eyes going down to the floor.

  Then, it was the package that drew my attention next.

  Followed shortly by my eyes traveling up a well-defined chest, and finally stopping on the most beautiful, manly, sexy face I’d ever seen.

  He had hazel eyes, a well-groomed beard, and tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos.

  So many, in fact, that I couldn’t pick just one to look at.

  The man was sexy.

  In fact, even my vagina—which hadn’t been all that interested lately—gave a pulse of life upon seeing the man.

  I smiled at him then.

  “Hello,” I said softly.

  “Baby,” my mother said. “This is the man that’s going to give you his kidney.”

  My breath hitched.

  This beautiful man was going to give me a kidney?

  But…why?

  “Pace. Pascha Vineyard.” Pace held his hand out to me.

  “Don’t call him Pascha, though,” Ford suggested. “He gets all prickly when you do that. I don’t know if you remember him, but he was the one that was in the unit with me when I had that concussion a few years ago.”

  The one that had almost died. The one that had had both of his legs blown apart so badly that they’d had to amputate both of them below the knee.

  Pace snorted. “It’s not my favorite.”

  I wanted to know why.

  I wanted to know a lot about him, actually.

  I looked over to my parents. “Can y’all give us a minute?”

  My mother made eye contact with my father, and then she nodded once. “Yeah. We’ll go grab dinner. Do you want anything?”

  No.

  I never wanted anything.

  My appetite was barely there, almost non-existent. At this point, it was a minor miracle if I got anything solid down at all.

  The moment that they were all gone, I looked over at my savior, the man that was going to put his life on the line and give me a part of him, and asked him the first thing that came to mind.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”

  Hadn’t the man suffered enough?

  I mean, he’d gone through a war. He’d had both of his legs amputated. He’d had years of recovery, according to Ford.

  And now he was willing to give me a kidney?

  Pace grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to my bed.

  I repositioned myself until I was sitting cross-legged but facing him.

  He watched me get comfortable and then returned his eyes to me.

  The smirk that lit his mouth made me want to bite the lip that was kicked up.

  Then kiss it.

  “You probably don’t know this,” he said softly. “But the first time I saw your picture on your brother’s phone, my whole world changed.”

  I felt something in my chest kick at that news.

  “Saw your brother’s lock screen. It was that picture of you and him when y’all were at his boot camp.”

  I blinked, knowing exactly which one he was talking about.

  In fact, I had the same one on my own lock screen right now.

  Had been for nearly five years.

  I loved it.

  It wasn’t often that I got to see my baby brother smile like that. And next to me, at that.

  “That’s awesome,” I admitted. “But still…” I looked at him, studying his scars up close now. That had been why he had so many tattoos. They were covering his scars. “You’ve gone through so much.”

  “Are you trying to talk me out of saving your life?” he asked, sounding amused.

  I let my eyes move from his scar-covered, tattooed arms, and moved up to his face. My gaze caught his hazel eyes, which were the color of champagne right now, and for a second, everything stilled.

  Nothing was wrong with me. He wasn’t about to go through a dangerous surgery to save my life. I wasn’t in a hospital room, and he wasn’t sitting there, looking at me at my worst.

  We were just Pace and Oakley.

  A man and a woman.

  He blinked, and that moment passed. But that moment had irrevocably changed my life.

  If we lived through this, I was going to make sure that I stayed in his life—at least as long as I could, anyway.

  Which made me mention the next thing aloud.

  “Organ donation only lasts for about five to ten years,” I said softly. “And based on how long dialysis worked for me, I could ruin your kidney in possibly five years.”

  He looked at me with an honest, sincere look on his face as he said, “And in five years, I’ll help you find another one.”

  I would’ve cried had he not caught my hand.

  “I promise,” he said softly. “I promise that I’m not giving anything up. I researched it before I did it. I have a friend who has one kidney. He’s a doctor. I talked to him for an hour last night about it. Trust me when
I say, I know everything that could possibly go wrong. I know everything there is to know about it. I’m not going into this blind.”

  The sincerity in his words had what felt like a concrete pillar being lifted from my chest.

  I drew in a breath, smelling the lovely smell that was Pace, and breathed out.

  “I never thought I cared about five more years,” I told him, squeezing his hand. “Not until they told me you were giving me them.”

  He squeezed my hand back. “That’s kind of how I felt when I lost my legs. I never thought I cared about much of anything until my life was on the line. When I was lying in that bed, fighting for my life, I knew that I wanted to live, even if it was a shitty life.”

  I frowned. “You’re living a shitty life?”

  He shrugged. “I definitely wasn’t being very careful with it. I guess I just took life for granted…but now? Now I’m overly cautious about everything. I work a job that I despise, and refuse to quit even though my supervisor is a dick, all because I made a goal when I was in the hospital. I would walk again, and then I would do what I set out to do after I got out of the military—become a cop like my father.”

  “You’re a cop?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “So is my dad,” I murmured.

  “I know.” He grinned. “I was deployed with your brother, remember?”

  I smiled then.

  “What else do you know about me?” I wondered, thinking of all the things that my brother could’ve said about me.

  He laughed. “You don’t want to know.”

  I felt my face flush, and I decided to let it go for now. There would be plenty of time to worry about the rest later.

  “I guess we only have one thing to settle now,” he said with amusement lacing his tone. “Do you want my right kidney or my left kidney?”

  I burst out laughing, shaking my head as I did.

  “I don’t know,” I teased. “Which one is better?”

  He seemed to think about that for a moment.

  “I’m left-handed,” he began. “If I give you my left kidney, I bet it’ll work better for you.”

  I snickered then, finding that I really adored this man.

  “You’re a really great person, Pace Vineyard,” I whispered.

  Pace shrugged, then shifted in his seat to pull something out of his pockets.

  He unearthed a familiar looking stuffed rabbit, and something inside of me stilled.

  “Hey, I remember that!” I said, smiling. “How did you get it?”

  I’d bought it for Ford as a gag gift when he was in basic training, I’d read that when the men or women got care packages, they were checked out thoroughly first to make sure there was no contraband. And I also read in one of the groups that I was in that stuffed animals were not allowed, and when they did get sent, they were given a whole lot of shit about them.

  I hadn’t had the courage to give the stuffed animal to him in basic training. I had the courage to send it to him over Easter, though. Mom had sent him an Easter basket full of candy. I’d made him a gag Easter basket—including a tiny little finger puppet bunny rabbit.

  A finger puppet bunny rabbit that Pace now had, and had apparently had for a very long time.

  “Ford opened your care package the day that the bomb went off in front of us. The day that I lost my lower legs,” he murmured, his eyes on the rabbit. “I had it in my hand. And apparently kept it in my hand until they physically removed it from my fingers. But it never went far, and I’ve had it ever since. It’s sort of my lucky talisman at this point.”

  I found myself unable to stop grinning.

  “That’s awesome,” she said softly. “Ford would’ve just thrown it away.”

  Pace’s eyes once again met mine.

  “I’m not scared to do this,” he said softly. “I made a promise with myself when I was lying in that hospital bed after having my legs amputated. I wouldn’t let life pass me by anymore. I wouldn’t waste chances. I wouldn’t second guess my feelings—one in which I’d had that day all day long—a feeling that something bad was about to happen.” He swallowed. “But I knew from the moment that I met you that I was put on this Earth to change your life. I know that you don’t think it’s possible,” he said as he held onto the bunny. “But you changed mine.”

  Chapter 4

  Inappropriate with a chance of ruining family dinner.

  -Coffee Cup

  Pace

  I arrived at the hospital twenty minutes before they wanted me there.

  It would’ve been thirty, but I’d been waylaid in the ER by a couple of buddies on the force who wanted to wish me luck.

  How they knew that I was doing this today, I didn’t know.

  But I’d enjoyed seeing them. I’d enjoyed it even more when they said that they were going to make sure that Sergeant Jackson wouldn’t ‘can’ me while I was laid up in the hospital.

  When I arrived on the floor and checked myself in, the tired looking man behind the counter gave me an ID bracelet, then double-checked my identity, blood type and date of birth.

  We then shared a laugh when he read the same info on my wrist as he was putting the ID bracelet into place. The blood type, allergies, and my name used to be on my foot—it was a morbid thing I’d done straight out of bootcamp—but the bomb had taken that tattoo right along with my feet.

  “It used to be on my foot, but that was blown off when the bomb happened,” I said. “The irony is not lost on me.”

  “Why is it ironic…” He stood up and looked down over the counter, his mouth opening in an ‘oh shit’ way. “Well, how about that.”

  I grinned and said, “That it?”

  He nodded. “Good luck, man. Good thing you’re doing.”

  I knew it was.

  I knew even more that it was for a good person.

  Even if I didn’t have an extra kidney to give, I’d consider giving it to her still. She was that good of a woman.

  Anticipation zinging through my veins at seeing her again, I practically skipped toward the elevator. Then, when I was on the elevator, I bounced on my prosthetics.

  Who would’ve thought I’d be this damn excited over donating my kidney?

  But something about Oakley Spurlock did things to my soul.

  Things that actually made me want to participate in life instead of just watch it pass me by.

  See, had this been any other situation, I would’ve been pissed at Sergeant Jackson. Had this just been me, being sick, I would’ve loaded up my dying carcass and gone to work just to keep Sergeant Jackson happy.

  But even the thought of getting fired from the Kilgore Police Department didn’t bring me down.

  So, when I stepped off the elevator with a smile on my face, it didn’t dim at what I saw.

  Utter. Chaos.

  The first thing I spotted was Ford.

  The second was Ford’s brother, Banner.

  Both of them were standing at opposite ends of the long hallway, staring at the chaos around them.

  Since Banner was closer, I walked to the young man and stood next to him.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked curiously.

  “A woman pregnant with eight babies came in,” Banner said, shaking his head. “Plus, a wreck. That wreck holding a bus of pregnant women from prison. Since there were so many felonious pregnant mothers, they decided to clear that floor and bring them up here. The octuplet mother came in about an hour after the pregnant women. All the flurry on the floor is mostly because of her. She’s about to deliver.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s cool.”

  “Not cool,” Ford said as he arrived at my side. “That bitch with her eight kids is trying to take my sister’s spot in surgery.”

  I frowned. “I realize that Oakley’s surgery is important and all, but obviously a woman pregnant with eight children can’t really help when she
goes into labor.”

  “No,” Ford agreed. “But Oakley had a setback last night.”

  I felt everything inside of me still.

  “What happened?” I barked.

  Why did this news set my heart to hammering, and my hands to shaking?

  Why did I suddenly feel lightheaded?

  “Blood pressure tanked.” A third man joined the small huddle. Trance, their father. “Trouble breathing.”

  I found myself stepping toward the room before I’d even consciously told myself to do it.

  But before I could get to the room, the doctor came sailing out of it, saw me, and then clapped his hands together. “Good, you’re here. Come in here, come in here.”

  I followed him into Oakley’s room where a second bed was set up and waiting.

  “I wish I could offer you your own room,” Dr. Page apologized. “But the circus has arrived on this floor. This is also going to be quick and dirty. I have two operating rooms scheduled for twenty minutes. Octomom is getting the same emergency rooms in two and a half hours. As soon as all the NICU—neonatal intensive care unit—nurses arrive. We’re getting this done before them.”

  My eyes moved from the doctor, who’d been standing in front of Oakley’s bed, blocking her from my view, to Oakley, who leaned over to see around Dr. Page’s body.

  I grinned at her. But that grin quickly slid off my face when I saw that she had an oxygen mask covering her face.

  “I’m in,” I said. “You just tell me what you need me to do.”

  Dr. Page pointed to the bed. “Strip. Lose the legs. Make sure all metal is out of your body…”

  “I was hit by a goddamn bomb, Dr. Page. There’s still pieces of shrapnel in me,” I told him, worried now.

  He waved his hand through the air. “All removable metal.”

  I nodded once.

  “Let the nurses, if we can find a goddamn nurse, start your IV,” he continued.

  I looked out at the hallway that was still buzzing like a beehive.

  “I can do that,” Ford offered. “If you get me the stuff. That way you can go get your shit done.”

  Dr. Page looked at Ford questioningly.

  “Medic,” he answered the unspoken question.

  Dr. Page’s eyes turned toward me. “You’re okay with this?”

  I laughed. “I’m fairly sure that Ford’s worn more of my blood than I have, so yeah, I’m okay with that.”