Page 87 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
Slowly, memories of a storm came back to me. Right.The island. Lightning. The Sat phone. We needed to call for help.
“Phone,” I said, trying to reach for it, but the word sapped any energy I had and threatened to drag me under again. Lily sat up over me, her eyes red, tears staining her beautiful face. I wanted to caress her, wipe away the tears, but then she blurred, the fog crawling to me again.
“Wh—what?” She cupped my face with shaking hands, driving away the blackness.Stay for her,a voice whispered in my mind.
“Phone,” I said, my voice stronger than before. My hand twitched again, and I realized I held it. She looked down and pulled it out of my useless grip.
“We won’t have service.” She looked it over, seeming to be puzzled by the design.
“Tink.” His number was saved, and he could act as dispatch for us, walking her through what she needed to do while he called for rescue.
She held the phone to her ear, rocking slightly as she let it ring. I tried reaching for her again. I could feel all my limbs, but I just couldn’t make my body work right. I tried to listen to the call, but my head throbbed, and nothing really made any sense. I closed my eyes, hoping to ease the pounding.
I groaned, my eyes flying open when gentle hands pressed at my head, navy blue in my peripheral from the shirt Lily pressed against my wound.
I kept my eyes on her. She was crying still, but no longer the panicked, desperate tears she had been earlier. She brushed my hair from my eyes and smiled, small and sad.
“We’re quite the pair.”
“Yeah.”
She seemed to melt against me, laying her head againstmy chest, right above my heart, where it could rise and fall with my every breath.
“We’ll be ok.”
I closed my eyes again, content with knowing she was safe, and let the blackness claim me, just for a little longer.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Coast Guard came in a torrent of sound, light, and wind. My body stayed plastered to Duke’s until someone pulled me away from him. The rise and fall of his chest kept me sane while we waited. Losing it sent me into another panic.
“No,” I protested as hands moved me, Duke’s hand still grasping mine tight.
“Ma’am we need to give him medical care and get him on a board so we can get you both back home,” a man in a bright orange jumpsuit and heavy helmet said as he pulled my hand from Duke’s, breaking the only connection keeping me grounded in this mess. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. They could pull me away from him and rip my hand from his, but he wasn’t leaving my sight.
The ride back to the mainland passed in a whirlwind of shouted instructions, dizzying take-offs, and turbulence as we passed through the last vestiges of thestorm. Duke’s eyes were open, though, and they tracked me as carefully as I watched him. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t tell what he said over the cacophony around us.
I fought every instinct screaming at me to push the MEDEVACs away. He didn’t need me right now. He needed medical care. That thought ran on a loop through my head as I tried to be a good patient.
The nurses at the hospital wheeled us away from each other, and I watched through blurry eyes as they took him back for tests. I hardly noticed my own injuries being tended to.
“When can I see him?” I asked the front desk for the hundredth time since they separated us. It felt like hours of fluorescent lights, the scent of antiseptic, and endless waiting. My own injuries were minor—a sprain and a cut that only needed a few stitches.
“What’s his name?”
“Samuel Pennington.” I tried not to lose my patience as I told her. She was likely tired and overworked, but I’d given her this information every time I walked up. Certainly she would remember me by now.
“He was just moved to his room. You can go up now.” She gave me a sticker with our information on it, and I hobbled as fast as I could to the elevators.
Beeping greeted me when I entered his dim room.
“Duke?” I asked softly, not wanting to disturb him if he was sleeping, simply needing to be close to him again.
His head sported a white bandage, IV lines ran from his arm, and his chest had cords running from it to the machine by his bed. I couldn’t read the output, but he looked stable.
He didn’t move when I entered and pulled a chair over to sit next to his bed. Tears fell from my eyes as I took himin, thinking the worst.
A nurse walked in as he slept.
