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  “That’s true,” Ford said, looking down at my prosthetics.

  “All right then,” Dr. Page clapped. “Let’s get this party started. Have a seat on this other bed, Mr. Vineyard. We’ll get you the stuff and Ford can get you ready. I’m going to go scrub up, and my nurses will be down to collect y’all momentarily.”

  With that, he left the room, finally giving me the chance to look at the woman that I’d been dying to get a good look at.

  She smiled at me through her oxygen mask.

  “So you’ve gone and taken a turn,” I teased. “Didn’t I tell you last night to watch over yourself when I left?”

  Oakley shook her head, but amusement was written all over her face.

  “I don’t know what happened. You just took my breath away when you left,” she said through the mask.

  That had the entire room chuckling.

  “Okay,” Ford said as he came back into the room. “Strip. Lose the legs. Not even underwear. Then get into bed.”

  “I won’t be able to stand if I lose the legs first,” I said. “Logistically, getting into bed’s gonna have to come first.”

  Ford rolled his eyes. “I’ll hold the sheet up for your delicate sensibilities.”

  I shrugged.

  I’d gotten over the whole naked phobia a long damn time ago.

  Ford had actually started that trend when he’d cut my clothes off of me in the field. From that point on, I’d been naked a lot.

  So getting naked in front of a room full of people wasn’t as bad as it would’ve been in the beginning.

  Shrugging off my shirt, I tossed it on the end of the bed, then walked behind Ford’s makeshift curtain and shucked my pants before I got in the bed. Moments after that, I was removing my legs.

  The sheet slipped, though, and I knew that Oakley got more than an eyeful when she flushed a beautiful bright red and looked away.

  Grinning, I took the sheet from Ford and covered my junk—my getting hard in the middle of a crowded room junk—and leaned over to finish removing my sleeve.

  Once everything was situated, I swung myself into the bed, covered myself with the sheet fully, and then held my arm out to Ford.

  “Do me,” I ordered.

  Ford rolled his eyes, but inevitably ‘did me.’

  While he started the IV, got me started on a bag of saline, and made sure that everything was ready to go, I watched Oakley.

  Who I did not watch was Trance watching me watch Oakley.

  His eyes were narrowed, but not in a bad way.

  So when I turned away from Oakley when she suddenly turned toward me and caught me staring at her, I caught Trance staring at me.

  He grinned then.

  Not understanding the grin, I grinned back.

  “I feel like I’m waiting for something and I don’t know what,” Banner muttered. “Maybe I should go listen to more chatter about the Octomom. There’s a pool going on about how many boys and girls she’s having. Apparently, they were never able to get a good gender scan.”

  Everybody looked over at Banner.

  “That’s…interesting,” Trance rumbled. “You could probably just slip into that OR. They have so many going that I’m sure it’ll be like you’re just another nurse.”

  Banner shot his father a droll look, but before he could reply, two nurses came in.

  One male, who came to my bed, and one female, who went to Oakley’s.

  “I’m leaving you with my legs, Ford,” I said to the man who was looking like he was about to throw up. “Don’t lose them. They’re a part of me.”

  Ford rolled his eyes hard but nonetheless nodded his head. “I’ll watch out for your legs, bro.”

  Grinning, I gave him a thumb’s up. “See you when I see you.”

  Then the two nurses started rolling me out of the room following the gurney containing Oakley.

  The last thing I saw was Viddy’s scared eyes trained on mine.

  They rolled both Oakley and me down the hall, side by side, and I couldn’t help but try to lighten the mood.

  “So you know which kidney to take?” I grinned at the nurse who was pushing my bed.

  The nurse grinned back and jerked his head. “The left one. Apparently, it’s the better one, correct?”

  I held up a thumb high for him to see. “Perfect.”

  My eyes caught with Oakley’s as she was pushed into the first operating room.

  “Take care of yourself, bunny,” I teased her.

  She locked eyes with me. They looked wide and fearful.

  “Wait,” I said. “Hold on.”

  The nurse pushing me, pulled the bed to a halt.

  “Can y’all bring her closer to me and give us a second?” I requested.

  The nurses looked at each other, then at us, then shrugged.

  They stepped back and moved until they were standing in the hall about six feet from us. Unfortunately, that was about as far as they could go.

  They might hear, but I had to get that look wiped off of Oakley’s face.

  “Oakley,” I said softly, reaching for her hand.

  She looked up at me.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  I squeezed her hand tighter and moved until I could press a kiss to her palm.

  “It’ll be okay,” I promised.

  “How do you know?” she asked. “I’m…what if…”

  I squeezed her hand and talked over her. “There are no what ifs in life. Just is. Everything is going to be all right. You’ll come out with a new kidney, and I’ll come out with one less kidney. We’ll meet back in the middle at your room, and then we’ll shoot the shit and wonder when we’re going to be fed good food again.”

  Tears started to fill her eyes.

  “I don’t want to die,” she whispered.

  Her voice shook, and the worry that’d been in the back of my mind started to rear its head.

  This wasn’t a risk-free operation. This wasn’t some in and out procedure that was going to get done in an hour and then we’d both pop up again like nothing happened.

  This was going to take time to heal from.

  But, I knew that nothing would happen.

  In my heart, just like I knew when I’d gotten out of surgery the first time, I knew that I was going to be okay. And I knew this time she was going to be okay.

  So I let her see the sincerity and surety in my eyes as I said, “You’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. Then, when we’re both better, you’ll go out on a date with me.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “Is that a yes, or a no?” I wondered teasingly.

  She swallowed hard. “That’s a yes.”

  ***

  Viddy

  I’d seen my husband scared.

  Multiple times since we’d been married, in fact.

  I’d seen him sad. I’d seen him worried.

  What I’d never seen was him terrified.

  And right now, with our daughter being taken away to surgery, he was just that. Terrified.

  Panic didn’t even begin to cover what I knew he was feeling. Because it was exactly how I was feeling, too.

  I was a police officer’s wife.

  I knew what it felt like to be worried and scared—all the damn time. Times were tough. I knew that it was always a possibility that one day my husband would go off to work, and that night he might not come home.

  The worry was always there, at the back of my mind, where it would never go away.

  Even if he wasn’t a police officer, Trance was a problem solver. He wouldn’t stand by if anyone or anything was in danger, and he’d proven that over and over again.

  But he couldn’t fix his daughter. He couldn’t help her, and it was slowly killing him inside.

  The last four and a half years, I’d watched as he’d slowly lost hope.

  But I’d seen a side of him yesterday, a side that I’d missed.

  �
��Pace and Oakley are going to get married,” I said into the quiet of the room about two hours later.

  We were in the waiting area—a private one seeing as Octomom now had so many reporters and friends in the waiting room that they’d stuck us in a side waiting room that was rarely ever used. A fact in which you could tell seeing as the damn chairs were so old that even when I sat in them, they creaked. And my boys were no small men. I honestly feared for the integrity of the seats, but so far they’d held up.

  Trance, who’d been staring at the door like a lost puppy since we’d arrived in this room, slowly turned his head toward me.

  I could tell that I had Ford’s and Banner’s eyes, too.

  “What did you just say?” Banner asked, sounding adorably confused.

  “You heard me,” I said, knowing that he had. My boys missed nothing. “They’re going to get married.”

  Trance shook his head, like he couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth.

  “Are you okay?” Ford asked, sounding amused. “You’re speaking nonsense.”

  There were a few chuckles from the rest of our group, but I ignored them.

  I grinned then.

  “When I walked out of the room, I stopped at the nurses’ station. That was how I knew where to go while they were in surgery,” I explained.

  “And…” Ford pushed.

  “Well, apparently Pace stopped them outside of the operating room because Oakley was having a panic attack,” I said, making Trance tense beside me. “He made them push each other close, and he took her hand and calmed her down.”

  “That’s Pace,” Ford grinned. “He’s always been like that, though. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to marry her.”

  “After he was done talking her down, he told her that they were going out on a date after they were all better.” I smiled. “And she said yes.”

  “Just because she agreed to a date doesn’t mean that she agreed to marry him, Mom.” Banner rolled his eyes.

  My lips curved into a smile.

  “Trust me,” I said. “This is happening. It’s a matter of when now, not if.”

  Nobody refuted that because they didn’t know what to say to it, I was sure.

  “Why doesn’t Pace have anybody here waiting on him?” Banner suddenly asked.

  I looked over at my youngest son just as Ford said, “His parents are assholes. His dad divorced his mom when they were young, got sick of all of them and started a new family. One with a sane woman as a wife.” Ford snorted. “Not that I blame him, I just wish he would’ve taken Pace with him. Anyway, so he has a sister and a mom. And both act exactly like the other. Which sucks, because Pace is a really good guy. The only good thing he has is an aunt, and Pace told me she couldn’t arrive in time for the surgery. I’m supposed to text her when he gets out.”

  “Why’s his mom so bad?” Banner wondered.

  “He got a letter while he was deployed from his mom asking for money,” Ford said. “When he ignored it, the sister sent one. Told him she was going to kill herself if she didn’t get the five hundred bucks she needed.”

  I curled my lip in disgust. “What the fuck?”

  Trance’s eyes were dancing as he looked at me.

  “Baby,” he said softly.

  I turned a narrow-eyed look toward him. “What?”

  “You’re getting all growly and cute,” he said. “Pace is not a stray dog. You can’t adopt him. He probably doesn’t want help, anyway.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “We’ll just see about that.”

  And we spoke on and off about Pace for the next hour, getting increasingly more and more tense as the time wore on.

  The procedure itself was supposed to take three hours for Oakley. Pace would be done momentarily.

  But it’d already been well over two, and we hadn’t heard a word on his surgery.

  “Maybe I should go check with the nurses.” I paused. “Maybe they forgot to give us an update on Pace.”

  Trance caught my hand before I could fully stand. “Sit, baby.”

  I sat, leaned into him, and closed my eyes.

  I was nervous.

  I’d done a damn fine job in talking over the last couple of hours, but my nerves were starting to fray.

  “How do you know that they’ll get married, again?” he asked curiously.

  I knew what he was doing, trying to get my mind off of what was going on.

  Well, it wouldn’t work.

  I was still thinking about my baby.

  But I’d humor him for the time being.

  “When he walked into the room yesterday, he had the same look on his face that you had on yours the moment I was able to see you clearly,” I whispered. “The look of utter devotion. Of the willingness to do anything to make sure that I never saw harm. Y’all were too busy staring at our girl. While you were doing that, I was staring at our boy.”

  “He’s our boy now?” Trance teased.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “From now on, he’s our boy.”

  And that was that.

  Chapter 5

  How to keep brownies fresh: eat them all in one sitting.

  -Helpful Tips & Tricks

  Oakley

  I awoke partially due to the voices beside my bed, and partially due to the pain that I was in.

  Okay, mostly I woke because of the pain I was in.

  It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

  I could hardly draw in a breath without a shock of it shooting down my belly.

  Trying to focus on something—anything—else, I started to focus on the sound of voices.

  “They transferred him to a different department,” I heard someone say. “The officer that is his superior is a real dick. I heard him talking to someone outside the emergency room. They wrote him up for failure to approve vacation time. And since he’s in his probationary period, they didn’t have to have a reason to write him up. Honestly, I’m surprised at this point that they kept him on at the police department. Though, if I had to guess, he’s going to be gone soon. That supervisor of his is a real piece of work.”

  I wasn’t sure how I knew that they were talking about Pace, but I knew without a doubt that they were. In my heart, I knew.

  “That’s a bunch of fuckin’ bullshit,” I croaked, opening my eyes. “Daddy, you better be doing something about that.”

  That was when my father and Ford practically pushed my mother out of the way to get to me.

  I laughed softly, and nearly cried out in pain when the shock of agony tore through me.

  “You’re on a pain pump,” my mother said, pushing back through my brother and dad. “Both of you back up.”

  Ford did, but my father stayed put, his hand going to my face as he bent down and said, “Hey, baby.”

  I smiled and closed my eyes, trying to hide how much pain I was in.

  I didn’t want to make him feel worse than he already did.

  Sadly, he’d been the one to expose me to the flu. I’d gotten it, and complication after complication arose, ultimately ending in me losing kidney function.

  It sucked.

  It sucked bad.

  But he was not the cause of it.

  Whatever button my mother had pressed shot some sort of medicine into my veins, and I instantly felt an easing to the pain at my back.

  “Daddy,” I said, turning my head. “Fix it.”

  My father’s eyes went hard.

  “Oh, I’m going to,” he said. “Don’t you worry about that, baby.”

  “Call him here, though.” I grinned. “I want him to hear what you have to say in front of me. I gotta witness it.”

  Ford snorted. “You just want to give the man a piece of your mind.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Ford rolled his eyes. “Pace won’t take this lying down.”

  I turned my eyes to my brother once again, unsure when I’d closed them.r />
  “You know Pace well?” I whispered.

  I was getting sleepy now that I wasn’t in pain.

  “Yes,” he said. “We went through hell together. I know him about as well as he’ll allow me to know him.”

  He’ll allow me to know him.

  That was a loaded statement if I’d ever heard one.

  “Where is he?” I whispered. “Is he okay?”

  Suddenly I was wide awake again, and worry shot through me.

  I’d thought he was in my room with me, but they surely wouldn’t be talking about him if he was here.

  My father patted my face and stood up.

  “They moved him into his own room after surgery,” my father explained. “They thought he’d be more comfortable in a room by himself.”

  Disappointment rolled through me, and I stared at my family.

  “But he’s by himself,” I whispered, heartbroken.

  “He’s not by himself,” my father promised.

  ***

  Pace

  The first time I woke, it was to find a woman standing at the end of my bed that I knew well.

  Her name was Mercy, and she was Ford’s aunt.

  She was also the woman that had helped me get back on my feet.

  Ford had sent me to her after I’d completed rehab, and Mercy and her business, Second Chances, had helped me not only get back on my proverbial feet but also find the job that I wanted.

  “Hey, Mercy.” I smiled. “What are you doing here?”

  Mercy grinned, and a lock of her chestnut hair fell over the front of her shoulder.

  “I was informed, in no uncertain terms, that you were to have a familiar, smiling face to look into when you finally woke from surgery,” she explained, then frowned hard at me. “You had a bad reaction to the anesthesia. They were really worried there for a while. You’ve taken so long to wake up that even I started to get worried, and I’m not generally a worrier.”

  I smiled then.

  “How long have I been out?” I wondered.

  “Your surgery finished about four hours ago,” she answered, walking around the bed and taking the seat beside it. “Oakley made it, since that’s what you’re going to ask next.”

  I shook my head in the negative. “No, that’s not what I was going to ask.”