A Rugged Ranchin' Dad. Kia Cochrane

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ footsteps. It was the nurse. “You may see your wife now,” she said. Her smile was reassuring.

      He rushed to the door of Dahlia’s room, the past couple of days crowding his mind. The argument, Dahlia racing off blindly to save Firelight, the way he’d found her, unconscious, in the meadow, the coma she’d been in for the past thirty-six hours...

      Relief crashed in on him, flooding him with memories. It hadn’t always been like this, Stone thought, as he hesitated outside the private room. Once there had been love and laughter.

      Once he’d had a family. A whole family—with Dahlia, Field and Brooke.

      Now it was breaking up all around him, and he didn’t know how to stop it from happening.

      Stone entered the room, the scent of roses and carnations assaulting him from all sides, reminding him of the flowers at Brooke’s funeral.

      And in the middle of the flowers, Dahlia lay still and silent in the white bed. But at least she was okay. The doctors had said so. All they’d been waiting for was Dahlia to wake up.

      The doctor and nurse separated and let him pass between them, so he could bend over Dahlia’s bed. Stone swallowed slowly, taking her limp hand in his. “Dahlia,” he said quietly. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay now. I promise.”

      He held his breath. He’d been talking to her for the past day and a half, hoping to get through to her. And then, a few minutes ago, she’d stirred and tried to open her eyes.

      But what if she slipped back into a coma when she heard his voice this time? What if he was the reason she’d stayed unconscious for so long?

      “Dahlia, open your eyes,” Stone said tightly, his fingers gripping her hand like a lifeline. That was exactly what she was to him. His lifeline.

      The center of his universe.

      But she was going to leave him if he sent their son away.

      “Dahlia.” His voice was soft now, urging her to come back to him. “Dahlia, it’s Stone. Open your eyes and look at me.”

      Her eyes opened and Stone looked into the violet-blue depths. The tip of her pink tongue slid out to lick her pale lips. “Stone,” she said as she felt around her shoulder area with her free hand, frowning up at him in bewilderment.

      “What is it, sweetheart? Does it hurt?” The pounding of his heart seemed to reverberate until the floor shook beneath his feet.

      “Didn’t I get my wings? Did they get crushed when I fell?”

      There was a moment of hushed silence. Stone looked from his wife to the doctor.

      “Your wife’s had a severe blow to the head, Mr. Tyler,” the doctor said quietly. “Give her some time.”

      Stone swallowed nervously, his gaze moving raggedly over Dahlia’s face. Her head was bandaged, her blond hair spread out on the pillow. She was small anyway, but in the hospital bed she looked smaller and more helpless than he’d ever seen her.

      “Stone.” Her voice was only half a whisper. “What happened to my ticket?”

      “Your ticket?” he asked.

      “The ticket for my wings and halo. Basil gave it to me before he sent me back to earth.” Her deep blue eyes, the color of the innermost part of a pansy, were fixed on him as she smiled. “He sent me back to help you,” she said clearly, and then her eyes fluttered closed.

      “Doc—” Stone felt full-scale panic wash over him.

      “Mrs. Tyler’s merely asleep.” The doctor’s voice was calm and reassuring.

      But Stone felt anything but calm and reassured.

      Apparently his wife believed she was an angel.

      

      A week later, Stone signed all the necessary papers in order to take Dahlia out of the hospital and back to Lemon Falls and the ranch. According to the doctors, Dahlia was healthy enough to go home—even if she did still think she was an angel.

      Stone turned as the nurse wheeled Dahlia out of her room. The woman smiled reassuringly at him. Different nurse, but the same smile of reassurance, he thought in exasperation.

      “You ready?” he said to Dahlia, hoping she couldn’t see how uneasy he felt. “I put your suitcase in the car.”

      She nodded, her blue gaze never leaving his.

      He noticed how she sat quietly, without fidgeting. He wondered if Dahlia truly was strong enough to go home, or if her current demeanor was what the doctors meant by possible changes in her behavior.

      As Stone guided his Ford Explorer through the heavy traffic in San Antonio, he kept stealing glances at his wife. Dahlia continued to sit quietly beside him, her hands folded primly in her lap. What was she thinking about? he wondered.

      She’d always been so full of fire and energy and life, her excitement at the promise of each new day contagious to all those around her, and a positive influence even at the blackest of times.

      But Stone barely recognized the subdued woman sitting beside him now, the woman she’d become this past week.

      For days now, he had avoided the subject of angels with Dahlia. And he’d constantly reassured the rest of the family that all she needed was some rest. But this morning he had his doubts.

      “You okay?” he asked her, as they drove out of the city. “We can stop—”

      “I just want to go home and be with my baby.” Her voice was soft as it cut into his words. And his heart.

      Stone’s breath caught in his throat. Had she forgotten? Didn’t she know that Brooke was—

      “How is Field?” she asked slowly. “Really: How was he this morning?”

      Stone was filled with sudden relief. She was talking about his son, not their daughter. Though Field was not Dahlia’s biological child, she’d been his mother for most of his life.

      Stone stole another glance at her. The heavy bandages had been removed from her head this morning, replaced by a much smaller one. Dahlia’s hair, its shades of blond as varied as a Texas prairie, was pulled back in a ponytail, the soft bangs hiding most of the dressing.

      But she looked so pale, he noticed with a sharp tug of guilt.

      “He sounded okay when I talked to him on the phone,” Dahlia continued. “But Field keeps things bottled up inside.”

      Like you.

      That was one of the accusations she’d hurled at him before her accident, Stone remembered. And it was still between them, as solid and unrelenting as though the words had been carved in rock.

      Dahlia turned in her seat and fixed him with her luminous, violet-blue gaze. “He told me you’d been reading and discussing The Three Musketeers with him before bed. That’s wonderful.”

      “I always talk СКАЧАТЬ