Page 51 of Your Heart & Mine

Too soon, a nurse appeared to escort Harper to Wyck's room. Leaving her family with whispered promises to return soon, she followed on leaden legs through the sterile corridors. The scent of illness hung heavy around her, magnifying her despair.

Outside the ICU doors, Harper balked. Wiping her sweating palms on her pants, she stood frozen as the doors whooshed open on their silent mechanical hinges. She wasn't ready. Wasn't ready to see her vibrant Wyck reduced to machinery and bandages, his essence dimmed. The nurse paused, intuiting her distress.

"Talk to him. Hold his hand gently if you can," she advised softly. "He needs to know you're here pulling for him." With an encouraging pat, she led Harper to a sliding glass door that cocooned Wyck in a private bubble in the cacophony around the ICU.

Harper forced herself across the threshold. Her agonized gaze landed on Wyck's unnaturally still form, and she had to grab the doorframe to stay upright. His left leg and hip were encased in a rigid brace. Purpling bruises mottled his arms and face. A bandage swathed his head, tubes snaking everywhere. The steady beep and hiss of machinery hooked to his battered frame assaulted her ears.

"Wyck," she choked out, stumbling to his side. She reached a trembling hand toward his, careful of the IV lines threaded across his skin. His fingers were dry and cool within hers. The warmth, the life that always radiated from him distressingly dimmed.

"They said...said I should talk to you," Harper managed around the sobs building in her chest. She perched gingerly on a chair the nurse had provided, afraid to disturb any injury she couldn't see.

"I'm here, Wyck," she whispered unevenly. "Please, you have to keep fighting. We all need you so much." She squeezed his hand as if she could will her own strength into him through the contact. But his fingers remained slack, face eerily blank behind the tape and tube going down his throat.

Harper dashed tears from her cheeks again, struggling for composure. She had never felt more helpless. What could her words possibly do to call him back from the brink? Yet she had to try. For him, for them, she had to try.

Gathering his hand in both of hers, she clung to it trying to infuse warmth into it. Praying she would feel the callused palm touch her skin again. "I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before. Sorry I was afraid. But I need you to know." She leaned closer, lips nearly brushing the shell of his ear.

"I love you, Wyck. I've loved you since we were kids stealing kisses down by the creek. I never stopped, even when I thought I'd lost you forever." The admission tore free like a bird long caged. "You have to come back to me," she implored raggedly. "You have my whole heart, Wyck Crockett. Always."

Her whispered confession echoed in the small room, punctuated only by the steady beep of the monitors. Harper laid her head down near his shoulder, still clasping his hand. Helpless tears dripped onto the stark sheets.

Mitzi found her asleep there shortly before dawn. She arrived with a gentle hug and steaming coffee. Her wise eyes assessed her daughter. "Honey? I've brought you some coffee. It's morning."

Harper blinked her heavy lids at her mother's touch and the smell of coffee near her nose. Suddenly, memory came crashing down and her eyes flicked to Wyck, still lying unmoving on the bed. She winced as pushed herself into a sitting position. The long hours slumped next to Wyck made her whole body feel like she'd run a marathon.

"Thanks, Mama." Harper took the warm, paper cup from her mother's hand and tried to give her a smile. She was sure she'd failed miserably.

Mitzi stroked her hair and Harper leaned into her, needing her mother's comforting touch. "I've gotten a couple of rooms at the Marriot right down the street," Mitzi informed her. "Why don't you take a few minutes and go take a shower and rest. Elizabeth and I brought you some clothes and things last night. I knew you wouldn't leave him."

"Mama, I can't…" Harper started to protest. Her mother took her chin in her hand. "It won't help Wyck if you collapse from exhaustion, Honey."

Harper shook her head stubbornly even as she stifled a yawn. "I can't leave him, Mama."

"At least go get a shower and something to eat," Mitzi coaxed. "Brenna is over there with Cam. Elizabeth and I will sit with Wyck until you're back." At Harper's continued reluctance, she squeezed her shoulder. "Go on now. Wyck would insist on taking care of you, so we'll do it for him until he can take on the job again."

Too spent to argue any further, Harper placed a feather-light kiss on Wyck's forehead. "I'll be back before you can even miss me," she whispered, clinging to the hope that somehow he knew he was surrounded by people who loved him.

As she reached for the sliding glass door, a vaguely familiar face came into her field of vision. The slender woman was older, her face significantly more lined, but there was no doubt who she was – Marjorie Crockett, Wyck's mom. Behind her loomed a tall, craggy-faced man twisting a weathered cowboy hat in his hands. Mr. Crockett looked like an older version of Wyck with salt dusting his dark hair and his shoulders slightly stooped from decades of hard, physical labor. The eyes were just as striking, however. Deep grey and full of emotion.

Between her panic and heartbreak, Wyck's parents hadn't crossed her mind. Shame filled her at the oversight. She knew he hadn't been close to his parents for a while, though he loved them fiercely. He'd expressed to her that he felt awkward around them now. They didn't understand why he'd chosen to change his name and didn't understand the life he led out of the mountain hollers they had called home their whole lives.

Her mother's sweet voice brought her out of her temporary shock. "Marjorie. Hank. It's good to see you." Mitzi held out her arms inviting Wyck's mother into an embrace as Hank shifted from foot to foot.

Marjorie's eyes traveled to her son lying in the bed. "What are they saying about my boy?"

Mitzi calmly reviewed Dr. Nash's news with the worried couple. Marjorie then went to the bed and stroked her son's cheek under the bandages that encircled his head. She kissed his forehead and Harper had to blink back tears at the tenderness of the gesture.

"I'm so sorry I didn't call you, Mrs. Crockett." Harper swallowed when the woman turned her seafoam green gaze onto her.

"It's okay, Harper," Marjorie said gently, eyes returning to her son. "He talked about you a lot through the years. I knew you still had his heart, just like we did. Even after he left us all." She gave a wobbly smile, blinking back more tears. "But now you're both here."

Marjorie put a light hand on Wyck's blanketed leg, as if making sure he was really there. "If anyone can bring our boy back to us, I think it's you."

Her quiet words resonated with Harper and motion clogged her throat. She hoped Marjorie was right—that somehow Wyck knew they were there and would fight to return to them. She said a silent prayer that their love was strong enough to bring him back.

Chapter forty

Awakenings

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