The wail of the siren echoed off the buildings along the Boulevard as the ambulance wound its way toward Cedar Sinai Hospital. The traffic had been heavy, slowing the vehicle nearly to a halt, making the long journey seem to take forever. Julie heard the siren only vaguely. Sitting next to the gurney on which Patrick lay, her cheek pressed to his chest, her fingers clutching his hand, the world was a vague, distant blur. Her mind was gratefully numb, dull with grief and loss.
In a corner of the ambulance, one of the attendants stared out the window, giving her privacy for her sorrow. The ambulance attendants had exhausted every avenue in an effort to restore Patrick’s heartbeat. Now he lay quietly on the gurney, each of them resigned to failure.
Julie almost felt sorry for them. It was hardly their fault Patrick couldn’t be saved. In truth, he had died long ago.
Against her cheek, his skin felt cool, no longer warm and enticing. Still, she didn’t move away. Soon he would be gone from her forever.
They had almost reached the emergency entrance to the hospital when a sharp beep sounded and Julie lifted her head. Another beep cut into the silence, then another. Several more echoed loudly through the speakers of the heart monitor.
“What the hell?” The attendant jerked to his feet, started toward the machine, whose wires were still attached to Patrick’s chest.
“What…what is it?” Julie tried to make sense of what was happening, why the young attendant was madly shouldering her out of the way, but her mind was still too numb to comprehend.
“Get the paddles! His heart is trying to start up again.”
“No way,” said the second attendant. “Not after all this time.”
The first attendant grabbed the paddles of the defibrillator. “Stranger things have happened.” He was ready to go into action but his gaze stayed fixed on the heart monitor, which had set up a sharp rapid series of pulses, then begun an even throbbing that made a constant, high-low pattern across the screen.
“What’s happening?” Julie asked, staring down at Patrick.
“His heart has started beating on its own.” The attendant grabbed the oxygen mask dangling near the side of the gurney. Julie gasped as Patrick’s lungs sucked in a great breath of air even before the mask had time to reach him.
“Holy shit!” The attendant’s eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. “He’s started breathing!”
“H-he’s breathing? H-he’s alive?” It was impossible. He couldn’t be alive. Val Zarkazian was gone.
Which meant Patrick Donovan should be dead.
The attendant checked Patrick’s pulse, found it growing stronger every second. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We tried everything we knew and we couldn’t bring him back.”
Julie said nothing. She didn’t understand what was happening and suddenly she was afraid. Patrick was breathing again. It looked as though he was going to live. But Val had sworn he wouldn’t be returning. What if the man on the gurney wasn’t Patrick. What if it was somebody else? Nothing seemed impossible anymore.
She waited tensely as the ambulance attendant worked over his patient, inserting a fresh IV, making sure the patient’s condition was stable. All the while Julie sat in the shadows, afraid to believe yet unable to stop the aching hope that was building inside her chest.
Dear God, if all of us really are your children, won’t you please help this one?
Perhaps He heard her, because a few minutes later, Patrick’s eyes cracked open, an intense cerulean blue. For a moment he seemed uncertain where he was, and Julie held her breath, praying a miracle had happened—that it wasn’t some horrible intergalactic joke.
Let it be him. Oh, dear God, please let it be him.
His gaze sought hers, caught and held. The harshness eased from his features and a corner of his mouth curved up. She grabbed onto his hand. He lifted it a bit shakily and pressed her fingers against his lips.
“I’m just Patrick now,” he said, his voice deep and rough. “And I’m eleven million dollars in debt. Will you marry me?”
Tears burned her eyes. Julie’s heart crumbled inside her chest. It was Patrick. Her Patrick. No man had ever looked at her the way he did. She tried for a smile but her lips trembled instead. She finally forced the answer past the thick lump in her throat.
“Of course, I’ll marry you. How could a woman say no to a man who has crossed a galaxy to be with her?”
His fingers tightened around her hand. “I love you,” he whispered as the ambulance rolled into the emergency entrance of the hospital. Then the doors flew open and a dozen white-uniformed medical personnel swooped into the rear of the ambulance.
He was grinning when they wheeled him away.