I immediately stood, offering my hand to Lucinda, and started forward just as Brock got there.

“Are you her parents?” The haggard doctor asked in surprise.

It made sense that they would know each other. Doctors knew other doctors.

Lucinda wrapped her arm around my waist, pulling me into her side. Instinctually, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me as well.

“That’s us,” Brock said. “This is her husband to be.”

Husband to be.

Fuck me.

I was.

I had the ring.

I’d had it for over two weeks.

Had intended to use it, too, yet I was a dumbass and wanted to wait for this to be finished first.

God, I was a fucking idiot.

The doctor, an older man with salt and pepper hair and brilliant green eyes, nodded and indicated a room.

My stomach dropped as we followed.

Why wouldn’t he just say it right there?

Lucinda started to cry softly at my side, and I knew I wasn’t alone in my fears.

“Jason,” Brock croaked the second the door closed. “Just tell us, please.”

Jason dropped his head and ran his head along the back of his neck.

“She coded three times while we were in the operating room,” he started. “We were able to get her back, but we had to crack her chest open. She sustained a laceration to her uterus that we were able to repair, and the bullet lodged about an inch from her spinal cord.”

Bile started to rise in my throat as I thought about all that she’d had to go through, and I clenched my eyes tightly shut as he continued to speak.

Each thing he expounded on put another nail in my coffin.

“Major blood loss, shock, she had a reaction to the blood we gave her and started to seize. Gave her some epi and she responded well to it, but there’s a lot more hurdles she’ll have to get over before she’ll make it onto the other side. But I have faith that she can do it. I’ve never seen a woman fight like she did. The next twenty four hours will be the major turning point for her, and I think that if she makes it through the night, then she’ll be okay. I’m going to allow the three of you to stay with her tonight in the ICU, because I know you’ll have nothing less, but I want you to take care with her. Talk to her. Tell her about your day. Anything to give her that will to survive. To fight,” Jason explained.

Brock sat down heavily into the chair at my side, and Lucinda dropped.

I caught her, helping her into a chair, and realized that maybe what I heard and what they heard probably weren’t one in the same.

“What…what’s going on?” I asked Brock, no bullshitting from me.

“Give her an hour to get back into her room. She’ll be in 444.”

Jason left, patting Brock on the shoulder as he left, shutting the door softly behind him.

I backed up, putting my back against the wall so I could see them both, and stared until Brock lifted his eyes.

Tears were streaming down his face.

“Tell me,” I pleaded.

“They don’t,” he swallowed. “They don’t think she will make it through the night. They wouldn’t have allowed us to all stay. The ICU has strict rules, and they don’t deviate from them unless they don’t think the patient will make it. Which is one and the same with Lennox.”

“Fuck. That.” I yelled. “Take me to her! She won’t fucking leave me. I don’t care what I have to do.”

Turning around and yanking the door open, I walked straight to my sister.

“Payton, I need you to bring that box on my nightstand. And grab my pillow and blanket off the bed. And one of my t-shirts off the floor. Got it?” I snapped.

She nodded warily. “Of course. I’ll bring it right back, okay?”

I nodded, and turned to look at my friends. “They don’t expect her to make it through the night. So y’all can go home, just…keep her in your prayers, okay?”

Every last one of the people filling the waiting room nodded. My friends and family. New friends. Old friends. Parents and soon to be parents in laws.

They were all here for my Lennox, and I wanted it to be for a much better occasion, but it was what it was.

Hopefully, in a few months, they’d be coming around for a completely different occasion.

Only time would tell.

***

Bennett

Three days later

I woke up to a feeling of someone running their finger down my sock covered foot.

My eyes slowly slid open, confused.

I was in the hospital still.

Kicked back in the recliner, I had my feet resting on the bed beside Lennox’s prone body.

Brock and Lucinda had gone home last night for some much needed shut eye, and I was to call them the moment anything changed.

But as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the only thing lighting the room a small lamp behind the pulled curtain across the room, I wondered what woke me.

“You’ve got big fucking feet,” Lennox rasped. “And they smell kinda bad.”

I don’t know how I did it, but one second I was kicked back, brain fogged with sleep, and the next I was standing beside Lennox, staring down into a face that I could barely see due to the darkness.

“How’d you know it was me?” I asked stupidly.

Lennox laughed weakly, barely, but she laughed.

“Nobody I know has feet as big as yours,” she told me softly.

She swallowed, and started to cough, and I quickly grabbed my pillow off the chair that I was sleeping with and pressed it down onto her chest when the tears appeared.

“Here, hold this. It’ll help feel like you’re not breaking in half,” I told her.

She clutched at the pillow.

“Owww,” she breathed.

My heart clenched.

“They had to crack your chest open in the operating room,” I told her softly, running my finger along the side of her cheek.

“Yayyy,” she said long and drawn out. “Sounds like a fun recovery.”

I leaned down until my forehead was leaning against hers.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I told her sternly. “Don’t do that again.”

“I’ll try not to be shot at by your ex-girlfriend,” she said solemnly, making me want to laugh.

“Dead ex-girlfriend,” I informed her, trying to keep the happiness out of my voice.

It wouldn’t be good to let people know I was happy that my ex was dead.

But after what she’d done to Lennox, I couldn’t shake the feelings.

“What’s with the sad face?” She asked softly.

I opened my eyes, ones I hadn’t realized I’d closed, and smiled down at her.

“I can’t believe she did this to you. I just can’t believe it,” I said, shaking my head.

She’d almost taken everything away from me.

Over and over again.

How many times did I have to pay for that one mistake of being with her?

It was the never ending story!

“She’s dead?” Lennox asked hopefully.

I nodded, looking at her mouth, then back up to her eyes.

“Yeah, baby, she’s dead,” I confirmed.

She breathed out slowly, then smiled as her eyes closed.

“Hate to say that it’s good, but it’s good,” she smiled.

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me.

“Yeah, it’s good,” I told her. “Now we can have our life back.”

“I missed you,” she whispered.

A tear, which had been threatening to spill over since I’d seen that she’d awakened, did.

“I’ve missed you too, Lennox. I’m so sorry I was such an a-hole this month. I was just so unsure of what to do that I took it out on the wrong person. God, I almost lost you, and you’d have left me thinking I’d felt that way.”

“It was worth it,” she said, her body settling a little deeper into her bed.

“What was worth it, baby?” I asked.

“Getting shot. It was worth it if it brought you back to me,” she explained.

My eyes closed shut tightly, and the tears started to leak.

“I was coming for you before I realized she had you.”

“Good,” she said softly. “I’m tired.”