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Jessica raced toward Luke. “Go to the truck,” he ordered brusquely, right as Noah pulled his rented sedan to a skidding halt in the driveway, shoved open the door and got out.
“Everything okay, Luke?” Noah shouted.
Luke eyed the doorway. Malone had disappeared inside. He turned to address Noah. “I’m taking Jessica home before the police get here,” he called a moment before a blast hit his back as Malone rammed him from behind in a powerful burst of force that sent him tumbling down the concrete stairs in a roll. He bounced down on his right side, his pitching arm underneath him. Pain exploded along his shoulder, through his arm, and he heard the bone snap a moment before his head hit the pavement and he blacked out.
***
KATIE ARRIVED at Malone’s place to find two police cars and an ambulance at the front of the house. Nausea rushed over her, fear tightening her chest. Luke. She knew that ambulance was for Luke. Her mind was spinning, fingers going numb. Dizzy with her reaction, she still managed to thrust the car door open—not even bothering to shut it behind her—and started to run toward the ambulance.
Noah greeted her halfway there.
“It’s Luke, isn’t it?” she demanded, grabbing his arm for support. She could not lose Luke, too. She couldn’t.
“He has a concussion, and he broke his arm,” he said. “His pitching arm, Katie. It’s a bad break.”
He was alive. “But he’s okay,” she confirmed. “He’s going to be okay?”
“You might have a hard time convincing him of that,” Noah said. “But yes.”
Katie would convince him he was okay. He was alive, and he was going to stay that way. That was what mattered. She started running, rounding the back of the ambulance right before they shut the door, barely blinking at the sight of Malone in cuffs standing next to one of the police cars.
She brought the back of the ambulance into focus. “Luke!” He was on the gurney, his arm splinted, his head bandaged.
“Katie,” he whispered, and tried to sit up.
The EMT pressed him back down. “Don’t move.” The worker motioned her forward.
Katie rushed inside and sat beside him, on the opposite side of the bed from the emergency worker. She touched his face, her chest tight with emotion. “You have no idea how scared I was when I saw the ambulance.”
He tried to smile but couldn’t. “Ah,” he said. “My head.”
“Concussion,” the EMT told her. “He blacked out for about five minutes.”
“How bad?” Katie asked, eyeing the monitor they had attached to him, thankful it wasn’t buzzing with alerts. He appeared stable.
“I have a hard…head,” Luke whispered hoarsely.
“We won’t know until they do tests at the hospital,” was the EMT’s official answer.
The ambulance started moving. Katie bent down and kissed him. “I love you, Luke,” she said. “I love you so much. You and your hard head.”
“Katie,” he whispered, shutting his eyes. “I…am not sure I will pitch again. I…don’t know what that means for me.”
“You will pitch again,” she said, sensing the torment in him. “You will. They’ll fix your arm.”
His lashes lifted just barely, as if he couldn’t get the energy to raise them all the way. “Is that what they told you about…your knee?”
Her heart squeezed with that question because, yes, that was what they’d told her. They’d told her she would dance again. Katie wasn’t going to do that to him. She took his hand. “Whatever happens, Luke, I’m here for you.” He didn’t respond.
His lashes lowered again and Katie looked at the EMT.
“I gave him some pain medicine,” he said. “He’s sleeping.”
So he didn’t hear her vow. She’d tell him again when he woke up. She’d tell him however many times he needed to hear it. No one had been there for her when she’d lost her dancing. If Luke lost pitching, if he lost baseball, she wasn’t going to let it destroy him.
***
LUKE WOKE to find Katie asleep in the green hospital chair beside his bed where she’d dozed off and on through all the poking and prodding he’d been through. He stared at her, the woman he loved. Pale, perfect skin, smudged with dark circles. Not a stitch of makeup. Her dark hair fell wildly around her face, a rubber band at the back of her neck barely holding it in place. And she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She’d been through so much, and she deserved happiness. He had thought he could give her that happiness. He had thought he would be the man to make her wake up and smile every day. But now—well, the man she thought she knew, the man he knew himself to be, might not be anymore.
“Going to Malone’s house was such an idiotic move,” Luke mumbled under his breath, staring out the hospital window as he waited for the specialist to tell him his future.
