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Shot three times. Artery, nicked artery. Taking him for surgery.
My brain wasn’t functioning enough to say what I really wanted him to know.
But a few words did make their way through my clouded brain.
“Tell him he’ll die over my dead body.”
Little did I know that we’d both be experiencing a few near-death experiences over the next hour.
And we’d wind up in side by side OR rooms as we did.
Stay with me, Sunshine. Don’t let go.
I’d never let go. Not willingly, anyway.
• • •
“…find him,” someone growled.
Who was him again?
“Good. Put him at the safe house with her mother,” I heard someone continue with their apparent phone conversation. “I’ll ask questions once I’m sure she’s out of the woods.”
She being in the woods was probably me.
Why was I in the woods?
“…going into surgery now. They expect it to take a while. Her hip bone is shattered. So is her femur,” a male continued. “She has a lot of issues regulating her blood pressure now, too. They’re worried she’ll crash once the surgery starts.”
That was a bummer.
• • •
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“We’re losing her!” someone yelled.
I didn’t know that voice.
What I did know was that my head felt like it was floating, and there was a really bright light in front of me that was so warm that I wanted to curl up into it and stay there forever.
I was at peace.
I smiled with my eyes closed, and the sun warming my skin.
“Hello.”
I looked over at the two bright blue-eyed boys. Like a pool. Gosh, they were blue.
So. Blue.
“Hi,” one said while the other just smiled.
Twins.
They were…
Something niggled at me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“How old are y’all?” I asked curiously.
Why did I ask that?
“Eight, almost nine,” the one who hadn’t spoken earlier said. “Do you know who we are?”
Did I?
“No,” I answered honestly. “Should I?”
The one on the right smiled, and it was the smirk that sent a shock of awareness through me.
I knew that smile.
I knew those eyes.
I knew that hair, too.
Only, on the person that I knew it from, I’d only seen that hair in photographs online.
“You’re his babies, aren’t you?” I asked softly.
They both beamed.
God. My heart.
My stupid freakin’ heart.
Then there was only one standing there.
“Where’d he go?” I asked, looking around to see if I could spot him.
I didn’t.
What I did see was that we were in this really bright place. It didn’t have walls, and we weren’t outside, but everything was just so freakin’ bright. It’d be a miracle if I could see anything beyond that kind of light.
“Judd went to keep Daddy here with you,” Joe answered.
“Joe,” I said, smiling. “You’re beautiful.”
Joe smiled.
“Where is ‘here’?” I asked.
He shrugged. “In between. You’re not there, but you’re not home, either.”
That made a whole lot of sense.
“Do you want to leave?”
“Never.” I smiled. “Though this place is very peaceful.”
I looked around. I could live my life here and never feel like I was missing a thing.
It was…peaceful. I’d never felt such peace before. It was so soothing and I knew that I’d never get tired of the contentment that filled me.
“You’re back.” He smiled then.
I frowned.
Then I was staring at a bright ass light that definitely wasn’t nearly as peaceful as the other place had been.
There was screaming. My chest hurt.
And distantly, I could hear even more yelling that definitely didn’t originate from the room I was in.
“She’s back,” a female voice said. “We need to get her sedated again.
“Yes, please,” I croaked.
• • •
WINSTON
So warm.
I’d never felt so contentedly warm before.
I opened my eyes and smiled.
Because this place.
This feeling.
It was something I had never felt before.
Like a perfect rightness was filling me so full it was almost overflowing.
“Daddy.”
I blinked as a blond-haired, blue-eyed little boy stared at me with familiar eyes.
My heart instantly leapt.
“Judd,” I breathed.
I didn’t know how I knew it was Judd, just that some innate rightness told me it was.
My baby smiled. “Daddy.”
Something in my chest, something that’d been broken from the moment I’d gotten home and hadn’t felt them in my arms ever again, healed.
“Can I get a hug?” I croaked.
I’d dreamed of this.
I’d read plenty of books when my children were younger, and a lot of them always said ‘one day you’ll pick them up and not realize it’s the last time you’ll ever do that.’
They had no clue how right they’d be.
But at least most of those who said that had their children to still hug when the feeling of missing them got to be too much.
I hadn’t even had that.
Then that tiny body was in my arms, and those tiny little hands were wrapping around my shoulders, just like I’d always dreamed I’d have again one day.
“Where’s Joe?” I groaned, holding him way too tight.
More tiny arms circled my neck.
“You have to go back, Daddy,” the boy at my back said.
