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A boy, his Mackay looks diffused with the strong, determined lines of his father’s bloodlines.
The daughter, though, sweet heaven help them all. His daughter was pure Mackay in looks, already the image of her mother, with a hint of that bastard cousin of hers, Natches.
He couldn’t help but grin.
“The son of a bitch is going to crow about that one,” he whispered.
“Will you be there to hear it, though?” Garrett asked. “Or will Natches be the one to stand in for the father who couldn’t fight hard enough to return to her?”
—
“We’re losing him. Goddammit, we’re losing him,” Dr. Caine Branson yelled out to his surgical team, determination raging through him as he felt Graham slipping slowly away from him.
The EKG was quickly going to hell, BP was dropping.
“Like hell I’ll let you go,” he snarled softly. “I made that mad-assed father of yours a promise, Graham Brock, and I’ll be damned if you’ll see me break it.”
A lot of men had owed Garrett Brock, and Caine was but one of them. But at this moment, Caine knew, he was the most important.
His surgical team worked like the well-oiled machine it was, as though the years of working beneath him had been solely for this moment.
For this young man.
The artery was repaired, but the bullet was far too close to the heart, and the other had clipped his liver before ripping out his back.
The surgeon repairing the damage below was one of the best protégés he’d ever had. Giana Worth was worth her weight in gold. She was working quickly, efficiently, refusing to allow the teams keeping his heart beating to distract her from her job.
“BP’s coming up,” Nurse Salyer announced, though Caine could feel it, sense it.
“Heart rate’s coming back.” The male nurse, Jeffers, called out numbers.
Caine kept working. The vein was repaired. The chips of bone were removed from their precarious location next to the heart. He was almost finished, the damage nearly repaired.
“Your dad made me promise if you ever made it onto my table that I’d make damned sure you were breathing when you came off it,” he murmured.
He’d been talking to the boy since his gurney had been rushed into the ER.
“You make a liar out of me, boy, and when I reach the afterlife, I’m coming looking for you.” He worked steadily, tirelessly.
“This isn’t a good day to die,” he muttered as Graham’s heart rate fluctuated again. Garrett Brock had said that once, laughing as Caine warned him that his heroics were going to get him killed. “Buck up, boy. You’re stronger than this.”
Graham was indeed stronger.
Muttered comments and prayers slipped from the surgeon’s lips as he worked, but he was prone to do that often, anyway.
Whatever it took, he often said. He’d always felt his patients could hear him, no matter how irrational that may seem.
“There’s a girl out there crying for you, you know?” He kept the one-sided conversation moving. “Did you hear her crying your name when she came in with you? Really want to leave a Mackay sobbing, boy? Thought you knew better than that. Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches will strip your ass if they find you. Heaven or hell. It won’t matter.”
One of the techs chuckled, no doubt helplessly. They all knew the Mackays. Hell, sometimes Caine thought the whole world knew at least one Mackay, if not all of them.
“BP is strengthening,” his nurse announced, calling out the numbers.
“Excellent.” He breathed out in satisfaction. “That’s it, son. Fight. Fight for her. She’s worth it.”
The commentary continued. Fierce and demanding when it needed to be, determined and encouraging as Graham responded with that fierce will to live.
He would live. Caine refused to allow him to do otherwise.
