Chapter Thirteen
Camden
The mountain flew by in a whir of white snow and blue sky, dotted by pine trees and the skeletons of winterized aspens as I raced down the mountain. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, a familiar and welcome friend. The snow had already crusted, the result of the overnight freeze.
Why didn’t I pick up the phone the first time? I could have been there by now, not trying like hell to beat the air ambulance team.
I knew exactly why. Because I’d had my hands full of Willow. The phone had ripped me out of whatever ridiculous daydream I’d been in and dropped me on my ass in the real world.
The world where I would never be able to touch Willow like that again.
The world where Dad left the car running in the garage.
I took the final turn a little too fast and skidded almost to the edge of the drive, just shy of the switchback drop-off. Pay attention.
A half minute later, I killed the engine in front of the garage, where Xander hovered over Dad, compressing his chest in rhythmic beats, pausing only to deliver rescue breaths.
I ripped off my helmet and let it fall, already running into the garage. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Xander asked, up on his knees with his hands locked over Dad’s chest.
“Why is he still in here?” God, I could still smell the exhaust even though the truck was clearly off.
“I can’t get leverage in that much snow.” Xander nodded toward the driveway.
“He can’t stay in here.” I quickly assessed the garage and moved, spotting a full length of plywood. It came free of the wood stack easily, and I silently thanked my dad for being a type A…whatever he was. It scraped the floor as I slid it toward Dad, then dropped it to cover a section of the concrete.
“Help me,” I ordered and crouched facing Dad’s head. His weight was inconsequential as I lifted him beneath his arms, and Xander got under his hips. We carried him onto the plywood, then each took an end without discussion and brought him to the fresh air.
The board broke the crust of last night’s snow as we knelt on either side of him. When Xander moved to start compressions again, I grabbed his hands. “Wait.”
“What?” he snapped.
I rested my fingers on Dad’s pulse and felt the beat.
“His heart is beating. You’ll do more damage than good if you keep compressions. He’s in respiratory failure, not cardiac arrest.”
“So breathe.”
“Breathe,” I confirmed as the distant beat of rotor wings reached my ears. “They’re almost here.”
Xander tipped Dad’s head back and continued rescue breaths as I scrambled to my feet and surveyed the terrain. The flattest area with the fewest trees was directly behind the house. Sure enough, a minute—maybe two—later, the helicopter appeared over the house, blowing a fine layer of snow into the air but not much more.
The snow from last night was too heavy to kick up.
They landed right around where I figured they would, and two EMTs rushed out, only to be immediately slowed as they were faced with snow up to their knees.
“He’s this way,” I shouted to be heard over the rotors, then led them around the house to the driveway. “He’s in respiratory arrest. My brother found him by the steps there, with the garage door cracked but not fully open and the car engine going. He’s fifty-eight years old, okay health, but has early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
“Got it,” the guy answered as he and his teammate dropped to examine Dad.
He wasn’t breathing. The situation in its entirety hit me. He. Wasn’t. Breathing.
He should be dead. How the hell was he alone? How did he have access to the keys?
Xander stumbled over to me, still wearing his riding gear as the paramedics evaluated Dad, one of them already putting a rescue bag over his nose and mouth.
“God, Cam. I just went down to check on John Royal. He’s trying to get the power grid back online at Alba Electric.” He ran his hands over his hair. “Dad was asleep, and I thought I could make it back before he got up.”
He couldn’t have called John instead? I kept my mouth shut, though, because I hadn’t been here, either. Dad had been alone.
“I should have been here.”
“He wasn’t going to let you in, and you know it. He wasn’t himself last night. Thought I was Cal.”
The paramedics moved Dad over to the stretcher.
He still wasn’t breathing on his own.
My stomach turned over, chill infusing my flesh instantly. “Oh shit. Xander, this isn’t what he wants.”
“You don’t think I know that? Like he’d ever want to lose his mind to the point that he can’t open a garage door?” Xander shook his head.
“No, I mean, he doesn’t want to be resuscitated.” And I’d helped. I’d fucking helped. I’d been so blinded in my need to save him that I hadn’t even paused to remember his wishes.
“Don’t start this shit,” Xander snapped.
“Xander, they’re loading Dad onto that chopper. He’s not breathing on his own. You have to speak for him. He trusts you!” I turned, getting in his face. Our heights were comparable, but we both knew I could take him in a fight. Hell, it was the one thing I was good at.
My ability to build shit was always secondary to my capability for destroying it.
“Are you ready for our dad to die?” he challenged as the paramedics started the hike back up to the chopper and we followed.
“Of course not! You think anyone is ready for that?”
“What do you want me to do, Cam? Tell them ‘never mind, he wants to die here’?” He gestured to the house.
Shit. Yes. No. I wasn’t ready. If Dad died, he’d never know that I hadn’t been told it was Sullivan’s base. That while I was responsible for Sullivan’s death, I hadn’t known it when I made the choice. That I’d only recognized Sully seconds before I saw him get hit. I’d never have a chance to repair everything broken about us.
“Yeah, it’s not so easy once you’re the one making the choices, is it?” Xander shouted. “He has carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s not a long-term situation. They just need to get him breathing again, and we’ll bring him home. This isn’t what Dad meant, if you’re so certain he even meant it.”
“I’m certain!” We were right under the blades, and the words felt sharper than the metal slicing through the air.
“Sir? We can take one of you with us, but not both!” the paramedic called from the doors.
“I’m coming!” Xander replied and immediately started toward the bird.
I gripped his arm, which earned me a glare.
“For God’s sake, Cam, I have to go!”
“I asked him! Last week, we had lunch and I asked him. He meant it, Xander!”
Xander wrenched his arm from my gloved grasp and climbed into the helicopter without another word.
“We’re taking him to Salida!” the paramedic said.
I nodded, and he shut the doors. Knowing I needed to move, I turned and made my way back down to the house. Midway there, the helicopter was airborne, flying east down the pass.
Only my heavy breaths and what had to be a bass drum beating in my chest punctuated the silence once I reached the driveway.
The plywood in the center of the snow-covered space was the only evidence of what had just occurred. Xander had resuscitated Dad, and I had helped. Disgust filled my mouth, the taste so bitter that I almost vomited.
…
Two hours later, I walked into Heart of the Rockies, the closest hospital. It was a Level IV trauma center, so knowing that Dad had been admitted and not transferred was a good omen. That and the fact that he wasn’t dead yet were definitely marks in the positive column.
I’d had to call to get that tidbit of information, seeing as I’d found Xander’s phone on the garage floor. It had taken me an hour and a half to get the drive plowed with Dad’s quad, and I was lucky that the truck had enough gas in it to get down the pass to Salida, since my wallet was currently MIA.
Sure, it would only take a phone call to know that I’d left it at home, but the idea of talking to Willow after everything that had gone down this morning was enough to make me debate switching to the ostrich approach to life.
“ICU?” I asked at the front desk.
She directed me, and I quickly made my way through the sterile halls, my boots leaving muddy footprints on the pristine floors.
I knew mine would have been yours. What the hell had I been thinking to say that to her? Why couldn’t I stop it from replaying in my head? With everything going on with Dad, why had my brain decided to cling to that little morning fuckup?
Because you’ve wanted to say it for the last ten years, you moron. I promptly told my inner idiot to shut the hell up as I arrived at the ICU.
“Arthur Daniels?” I asked the nurse in blue-and-yellow-star scrubs.
“Family?” she questioned, only glancing up at me before continuing to enter data into a computer.
“Son.”
“Three sixteen,” she responded. “His other son is with him right now. Your brother?”
“That would be Alexander.”
She smiled. “Alexander. Got it.”
I shook my head and walked in the direction of the rising room numbers. Of course she’d want to know his name. She was young and pretty, and Alexander was a charmer.
I saw his boots in the doorway first; then the rest of him came into view as he leaned against the frame. He’d ditched the riding gear and looked way more responsible in his jeans and sweater than I did in my athletic pants and hoodie. Whatever. Emergencies didn’t allow time for fashion.
“Cam,” he said in relief, a ghost of a smile appearing. “I’m so sorry. I left my phone—”
I retrieved the device from my pocket and handed it to him.
“Thanks. I’m sorry they couldn’t fit both of us. I saw that drive. How long did it take you to get it clear?” He scrolled through his messages, which had to be more than a few dozen, if the way that thing had vibrated was any indicator. It could have gotten a woman off with half as many alerts.
“It’s fine. How is he?”
“Docs are with him now,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “We should get an update in a second.”
I stepped into the doorway and saw scrubs and white coats leaned over Dad, obscuring my line of sight as monitors beeped. But that whooshing sound…
Pushing past Xander, I felt the extent of what they’d done punch me in the gut.
I stared in horror as the blue accordion rose and fell, and when the doctors all lifted their heads, Dad’s face came into view.
How could he? I swung around, took Xander by the shoulders, and pushed him to the wall opposite Dad’s doorway.
“Hey!” one of the docs shouted.
“How could you do that to him? How?” I shouted at my brother as his eyes widened.
“It’s okay!” he replied, but not to me. No, his arm half extended at my waist, no doubt holding off the staff that was ready to rip the violent brother off the good one.
“It’s not okay,” I seethed. “You knew he didn’t want that, and you let them put him on a ventilator? He wants a DNR, you asshole!” My fingertips bit into the slight muscle of his shoulders. Feeling the give, I relaxed my grip and took a shaky breath to quell the rage flooding my body. “You knew.”
“I’m sorry,” an older doctor with perfectly silver hair said calmly, as if he hadn’t seen me take Xander to the drywall. “Did you say that Mr. Daniels has a DNR?”
“No,” Xander replied just as calmly, not moving an inch. To the outside world, he probably looked like the composed gentleman he was, attempting to divert attention.
But I knew better. He knew he was cornered by a predator—by me—and the minute he moved before explaining himself, I’d put his ass right back on the wall.
“He does not?” the doctor confirmed, flipping through the chart.
“No, he doesn’t. You’ll have to excuse my brother’s outburst. It’s been a very emotional day for us both, and my father apparently told Camden that he was thinking about a DNR, but we hadn’t ascertained his state of mind when making that request. It’s hard to tell with Dad these days. He looks and speaks normally, but he might be in the wrong year or not even have a clue what his own name is.”
“Don’t apologize for me,” I said quietly before turning my attention to the doc. “Dr. Taylor,” I addressed him after reading the embroidery on his white coat. “I’m sorry you saw that. I’m Camden Daniels, and my father told me both last week and last month that he wanted a DNR, so I’m just a little furious with my brother for allowing him to be intubated.” I tapped into the headspace I used when the mission overruled emotion, the space that had kept me alive for the last decade.
The doctor glanced between us, observing quickly and nodding. “This is a complicated matter, and I can respect that both of you must be at your limit. However, I can’t allow that to happen again on my floor. Understand?” Two figures in blue appeared behind the doc. They’d obviously called security.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, momentarily kicking myself for allowing my temper to hit so hot. At least I stopped myself from grinning at the guards. As if they could actually physically remove me.
“Good. I wouldn’t want to have to ask either or both of you to leave.”
“You won’t,” Xander promised, slipping me a sideways glance that I didn’t meet. Fuck him. He let them put a tube down Dad’s throat.
“Okay, I’ll give you guys two minutes, and then if you’d like to join me in your dad’s room, I’ll have an update.” He waited until we both nodded and then disappeared.
The guards didn’t.
“Unbelievable,” I seethed.
“I could say the same thing,” Xander snapped under his breath. “We’re not kids anymore, Cam. I barely kept you out of jail the last time you were here. It took me giving Hudgens ridiculous boardwalk space in the historical district to keep him from pressing charges.”
I might not have winced outwardly, but the emotional blow hit its mark. “You could have pressed them, too.”
“I would never, and you know it. I love you. You’re my little brother. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. But we’re adults now, and I can’t shield you from every consequence.” His entire posture softened. “Cam, you gotta work with me here.”
“You let them put a tube down his throat.” I reached for my hat and cursed inwardly yet again when one wasn’t there. At least when I was on a mission, the weight of the Kevlar grounded me, took away that one nervous tell I’d never been able to get rid of out of uniform.
“Yeah, I did. It was that or let him die. Don’t even say it. I’m well aware that you would have let him die.”
“I hope that I would have given him what he wanted, no matter how hard it would have been. But you know what? Up at the house, I helped you. I’m partially responsible for this, and that makes me sicker than anything. I get it, Xander. I do. I don’t want to lose Dad. Doesn’t matter how mean that asshole is or how deep his loathing of me goes, I want every possible second I can get to turn it around.”
“So you agree with me?” Wrinkles appeared in his forehead and at the corners of his eyes.
“No. I don’t. I’m saying that emotion can override logic in the moment. I’m saying that you need to take a good long look at the possibility that you’re letting your emotional needs trump Dad’s God-given right to say what happens to his own body. It’s his. Not yours. Not mine.”
“He’s not capable of deciding anymore, and I’m doing the best I can.” His entire face fell, and his mouth twisted.
“I know you are. That’s what makes this so damned hard. Now, let’s go hear what the doc has to say.”
“You’re not going to rip the tube out of his throat?” Xander questioned with a sad tone but sarcastic rise of his eyebrows.
“Sure, right after I unplug the ventilator and strike a victory pose. Of course I’m not. I told him I’d help him keep it from happening; we didn’t exactly talk about what to do once it was already done.”
His hand lifted to my shoulder, but where mine had no doubt left bruises on his skin, his gently grasped mine. “Okay, let’s get in there.”
We stood side by side at the foot of Dad’s bed while Dr. Taylor filled us in. Dad still wasn’t breathing on his own, but they’d had success with hyperbaric chambers, so that was the next course of action.
They’d have a full team with him because of the ventilator, but complications were rare as long as they were careful, and the higher oxygen was his best shot.
He’d already had a chest X-ray and EKG, both of which were promising but not stellar. Blood work was on its way back from the lab, since it had been a few hours, and the pulse oxygen wasn’t as accurate this far out from the incident.
“Was this suicidal?” Dr. Taylor asked, looking between us. “I need to ask.”
“I don’t… No. It can’t be.” Xander shook his head.
“It’s not,” I answered. “I found the garage door dented. My guess is he tried to back out with the door shut and disengaged it. That’s why it wouldn’t open with the button.” I turned to Xander. “You found him by the steps to the house, right?”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“And I’m guessing you had to hand lift that garage door?”
“I did,” he confirmed. “That makes sense.”
“Not suicidal, Doc. Just demented.” I gripped the base of Dad’s bed when I saw the soft restraints they’d Velcroed over his forearms, fastening them to the arm rails.
“He’s not going to hurt anyone,” Xander protested.
“They’re more for his personal safety than ours,” Dr. Taylor assured us. “We’ll bring him back soon.”
Xander and I sat in relative silence once they wheeled Dad out. We stared at each other for an awkward minute before he pulled his phone out and muttered that he had things he needed to check on.
I fired off a text message to Willow. It was less than she deserved but more than I’d thought I was capable of.
Partly a lie, since running out was the most self-preservationist thing I could have done, but I’d left her stranded at my house. I tapped the side of my phone, waiting for the three dots to stop on her side and a message to appear.
Leave it to Willow to ask how she could help after I pretty much slaughtered her this morning. I looked at the clock. Holy shit, it was already after noon.
Had Walt gone up to the house? Not likely, given that the power outage had hit the hotel, too.
I’d taken the Cat, and there was no way my Jeep was taking on that snow. On the plains, maybe, but not on the mountain.
Shit. I’d hit send before my brain caught up. Definitely had not meant to call her that, especially now that she knew why I did.
Which was probably what she was thinking about, considering the fact that she left me on read for a good two minutes. Wasn’t I turning out to be a needy little prick?
I knew mine would have been yours.
Maybe she thought I meant if I had been Sullivan, then my last words would have been about her. Not that I’d say them. There was a slight possibility…right?
But what if she knew? What if my lack of self-control let her in on the secret I’d kept as long as I could remember? What if years of keeping my mouth shut had all been for nothing and now she hated me? Or worse, thought I was capable of acting on it? I wasn’t capable, and even if I was, the town wouldn’t accept it. She’d be miserable either way.
“You okay?” Xander asked.
“What?” My head shot up. “Yeah, why?”
“You look…constipated.”
My eyes narrowed a fraction, and he looked away. Then I almost dropped my phone when it alerted me to her text. Total Green Beret material here. Good thing I’d gotten out if I was going to turn into a jittery mess over a woman.
Not just any woman, though.
I laughed, which earned me another odd look from Xander. At least I wasn’t the only one struggling. Not that I wanted to fluster her, but at least I wasn’t solo in the WTF department.
Three dots blinked for a few minutes, then stopped, but no other text message appeared. I would have traded a year of my life to know what she’d typed and deleted.
…
“Hey,” Walt called from the doorway in a whisper.
I held up my finger, then checked to make sure Dad was still sleeping and crept past Xander’s outstretched legs from where he was passed out on Dad’s other side.
“How are you doing?” Walter asked me once I made it into the hallway and shut the door.
“About as well as you’d expect.” I ran my hands over my face. How was it only eight p.m.? It felt like it had been years since I’d woken up across from Willow.
“Okay, then how is Art?”
“He’s doing better than this morning. Probably needs another couple sessions in the hyperbaric chamber. Still hasn’t woken up yet, and he’s not capable of breathing on his own. There’s some serious lung damage they’re hoping to reverse.”
“Not capable…” Walt’s face fell. “Did Xander put him on a ventilator?”
“Yeah.”
Walter’s eyes slammed shut, and his mouth flattened as he took a deep breath, then another.
“It’s my fault, too,” I admitted.
“What?” He visibly startled.
“When I got to the house, I helped drag him out and told Xander to stop chest compressions because his heart was pumping. I told him he only needed rescue breaths.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“And you think that led to him being on life support?” he questioned.
“I didn’t say anything to Xander until the paramedics already had Dad and were loading him on the chopper. I should have said something from the beginning.”
We stepped apart as a medical team came through the hallway, and I saw Simon hovering near the waiting room down the hall. I offered a wave, and he sent one back.
“It’s nice to see Simon,” I told Walt. The guy looked good. Happy. Just like his dad.
“He wanted to give us a few minutes before ‘barging in,’ as he put it,” Walt explained, waving to his son. “It’s understandable that you told Xander how to save him. Understandable that you helped save him. It would be understandable if you were okay with that ventilator. That’s your father in there. No one is going to fault you for wanting him to live.” He slung a small duffel bag from his shoulder. “Your girl dropped this off and asked that I bring it for you. Sorry it took so long. Took Royal until this afternoon to get the power back up. I swear that system hasn’t been upgraded in the last fifty years. It’s a miracle we’re not all on nob and tube.”
He handed the duffel over, and I took it, recognizing it as one of my lesser-used ones I’d stashed at the top of my closet.
“She’s not my girl,” I muttered. “Thank you for bringing it to me.”
“Willow Bradley has always been your girl, Camden. Doesn’t imply any romance.” He arched an eyebrow.
“Right.” I swung the bag over my shoulder and unzipped it. She sent sneakers and a few sets of fresh clothes that varied from athletic gear to jeans to a pair of pressed khakis and dress shoes. I laughed as I brought out a Ziploc bag full of cookies.
God, she’s amazing.
“Yeah, she sure is. Said she owed you or something, since breakfast got ruined?”
Shit, I’d said that out loud.
There was a sparkle he couldn’t contain in his eye when I looked up. “I pulled her out of a snowdrift and took her to my house. It’s not like that.”
“I never said it was,” he replied, outright smiling. “I’m also not as blind as the rest of the men in your family.” That stare turned pointed.
“Should I be insulted?” I dropped the cookies into the duffel.
“Hardly. You Daniels boys were always a little thick when it came to seeing things you didn’t want to. Your mama knew what was what, though. Especially when it came to the Bradley girl.”
“Why would you—?”
Chaos broke out behind me.
“Help!” Xander shouted. I was through the door before he finished the word.
Dad thrashed on the bed, his eyes open and wild, panic obvious in every line of his face. Xander was almost on top of him, struggling to keep his arms down.
“Cam! Help, he’s trying to rip out the trach!” he shouted.
“Get the doc!” I ordered Walt, then dropped the bag and ran to the other side of Dad. “Dad, stop,” I pleaded.
He met my eyes, and his flared with recognition. Then he screamed, a distorted, horrifying, barely audible sound, around the tube that pushed his air.
Seeing Xander losing, I pushed down on Dad’s biceps as he flailed, fighting the intubation and arching his neck.
“I’m making it worse!”
“Don’t stop! He’ll rip it out, and his lungs can’t handle it yet!” Xander argued.
Dad slipped free and made contact with Xander’s chest, shoving him into the cabinet of medical supplies right behind him.
The strength I’d always been so proud of had now become a liability in a way I’d never imagined.
“Dad! Stop!” I shouted as he reached for the tracheotomy tube. God, he was going to have to go through it all again if he ripped it out. Xander would make them put it back in.
I gripped his wrists in each hand and forced them to the side of his head as the medical team barreled in.
The look in Dad’s eyes said it all. I was the enemy who had betrayed him, and in this moment, he was right. It didn’t matter if he was lucid in there or if he thought I was fifteen or twenty-eight—I was the bad guy here.
My heart shredded and bled out with each attempt he made to break free, until orders were shouted and a nurse slipped something into his IV line.
Xander came around to my side, since his was occupied by the medical team, and leaned over the bed rails. “Dad, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” he repeated in a calm tone.
Dad looked at Xander, his eyes softening. Good—the drugs they gave him were taking effect.
Then they came back to me, and all the fires of hell were aimed in my direction until Dad lost consciousness, his body going limp beneath my hands.
“It’s okay. He’s out,” the doc assured me.
I let go of his wrists and blanched at the red marks I’d left on his skin.
Xander reached around me and brought Dad’s arm back down to the restraint as the doc did the same on the other side.
“I told you these were for his protection,” Dr. Taylor said sternly.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized for Xander, knowing full well that he’d been the one to undo the restraints. Most likely while I’d been with Walter.
Xander remained silent.
“Now, my shift is over and I’m going home. Do I need to worry?” Dr. Taylor asked me directly.
“No, sir.”
“I won’t ask you a third time. I’ll simply ban you.”
“You won’t have to,” I promised.
The doc stared me down pretty bravely for a guy I could end in about a heartbeat, then nodded and left, taking all but one nurse with him.
“I’m sorry,” Xander said, running his hands over his hair. “I undid them, thinking he looked so uncomfortable, and after I finished the second one, I glanced up, and his eyes were open, and he started thrashing.”
The nurse looked up from her chart but didn’t say anything.
My chest rose in even breaths, at war with the raging thoughts that circled my brain. I’d just had to hold down my dad for the very thing he’d begged me not to do. I jeopardized what truce we had, assuming he was lucid, and once again was the devil to Xander’s perfection.
“This is why he didn’t want this,” I said softly, menace bleeding into my words despite my attempts to chill. “That right there. Everything that just happened?” I put my hand on Xander’s chest and pushed lightly until he moved out of my way. “That’s on you.”
I didn’t pause to comfort him or address his ashy appearance. Nope, I let him stew in the shit he’d caused.
Never again would I be on the wrong side, no matter how legally right. Never again would I let myself get put into that kind of situation. Never again would I let Dad wake up in absolute terror and restraints.
I grabbed my duffel and headed out to the hallway, where Walt waited with tears in his eyes.
“You saw?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I’m going to need Simon’s help.”