Page 46 of His Wounded Heart

She continues to cough. It’s unending.

“Have Luther lift her head and shoulders up,” Simon tells me.

“Luther, you need to lift Violet up, so that her head is resting on your shoulder.”

He gives me a blank stare.

I bite my lip. How am I going to explain this? “Luther, can you pull Violet up so you’re face to face?” I ask him.

“She’ll cough on me.”

I feel my frustration start to mount, but I have to keep calm. I know this is just part of his disease. I know his symptoms get worse when he’s stressed.

“Luther, can you pull Violet up so she’s sitting?”

“Like this?” He pulls her up so that she’s sitting on his lap.

“Good job, Sweetheart. You did good. That will help her not cough as much.”

“My name is Luther, not Sweetheart,” he frowns at me.

I sigh. “Yes it is. You did a good job, Luther. Why don’t you stroke her back and whisper to her. She needs you.”

“Okay.”

Luther starts humming.

For the first time since we started down the mountain, there is peace.

“Well done, Trenda. You pulled off a miracle.”

Simon’s words wrap around me like a warm hug. I look over at him. His hands are relaxed now as they hold the steering wheel. I don’t know how, considering the fact that he’s basically driving blind. It must be a SEAL thing. And he also has a smile on his face. A smile for me. I feel the flicker of fireflies going off in my tummy, and we’re in the middle of a disaster. How is this even possible?

“This is the last fork in the road coming up. Remember there’s a tree splitting it. Veer right.”

“Got it.”

I know she has to be scared, but she sounds cool as a cucumber. I’m concentrating on the road ahead, so there is no way I’m going to look out of the corner of my eye at her, but I know in my gut she’s monitoring Luther and Violet. She’s done a hell of a job keeping Luther calm. Even though the man has propped up Violet, she still has sporadic coughing episodes that are an agony to listen to. With her body so frail, I’m worried that it is ripping her apart.

I’m at the fork, and I take the right. “Three more miles?” I ask.

“Two and a half, then we get a paved road.” No excitement, just a smooth, calm delivery. This woman is fantastic in a crunch. I feel like a piece of shit for having yelled at her about her seatbelt. She’d specifically told me that she has a phobia about men yelling at her, but what do I do? I yell at her. Why? Because I’m a dumbass. When I have just a bloody minute and we’re not in the middle of a shitstorm, I need to apologize and tell her I yelled because I was scared, not because I was mad.

“Trenda, there’s blood,” Luther yells. “There’s blood. There’s blood. Violet’s bleeding,” he screams.

I tune it out. I swear to God, the icy rain is even worse.

Fuck!

I slam on the brakes and yank the wheel to the left, barely missing the downed tree in front of us.

Shit, fuck, piss.

The airbags haven’t deployed. That’s a good thing; we never would have gotten off this goddamned hill, mountain, whatever the fuck it is. I look over at Trenda. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

We both turn around to look in the backseat. I had buckled Violet by using the middle seatbelt. It had grabbed her tight when I stopped, and therefore she was squished against Luther who’s shellshocked. At least he’s quiet now.