“Hold on, brother.” It was Glen talking this time. “Let’s have someone check you out.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. He patted his pockets for the keys of his Jeep. He remembered them on the floor of the cave next to their food supplies. “Damn.”
“Trent?”
Why were there two of Jason?
“What?”
Three… there were three of him.
The world tilted again and someone called his name.
Everything came into a fuzzy focus and then everything inside Trent’s stomach emptied.
Maybe I’m not fine.
Trent recognized the inside of the family jet. It had been years since he’d been there, and wasn’t exactly happy with being there now. Within one breath, he went from rescued survivor to patient. It was as if the mere mention of gastrointestinal issues made everything inside him twist on itself.
At some point, someone started an IV on him and he would swear that something soothing had been placed in his veins. The world dulled in flight. The noise of the engine lulled him to sleep. He hadn’t slept much in the past several days, afraid he’d miss the sound of someone passing by. He slept now.
An ambulance met them at the airport and took him to an emergency room. He noticed the faces of everyone there, pictured Monica in her environment, shouting orders… running around. “Is Monica here?” he asked the treating doctor.
“The other survivor?” he asked.
Trent nodded. “Yeah. The nurse.” It had taken Trent a few hours to follow behind her.
“She’s here.” The man didn’t elaborate, which made Trent even more uncomfortable. “What about the doctor who brought her in? Walt? Is he here?”
“I’ll see if I can find him.”
When Walt didn’t come to his bed fast enough, Trent pushed himself off the gurney to search out the man himself. Wearing a blue and white hospital gown with his ass hanging out the back end, he stepped outside the curtained room, and came up against his brothers.
“What are you doing?” Glen grabbed Trent’s arms as he leaned up against the wall with an IV pole in his hand.
“Where’s Monica? I told her she’d be OK. No one’s talking to me.” He was getting damn tired of people looking the other way and not answering questions.
“Mr. Fairchild.” A woman appeared at his side. Her brown hair and pointed finger indicated a wheelchair someone had pulled up behind him. “Sit down before you fall and make everyone in this terribly busy ER work harder.”
Trent sat… OK he fell into the chair. The woman he had to assume was a nurse stood over him, her hands poised on her hips. “You’re looking for Miss Mann?”
“That’s right.”
“She’s in the ICU. And if you want to see her you’re going to have to let us stabilize you first. No one is going to let you go up there and fall all over her.”
He could envision that this was how Monica scolded her patients. “How is she?” he asked.
“Stable.”
Like that told him anything. “Is her family here?”
“In the waiting room. I’ll tell them you’re asking for them.”
Trent exchanged glances with his brothers. “Thank you.”
“Can I get you back in your bed now?” she asked.
Considering the fact that he didn’t have enough energy to pull his ass out of the chair, the gurney didn’t sound bad.
Back in bed, the nurse who’d put him in his place returned to hook him up to a monitor that sat above his gurney. His brothers sat in chairs at his bedside and watched him as if he were a fish in a flippin’ tank.
“What’s that for?” Glen asked the nurse.
“The doctor wants us to monitor his heart.”
“It’s still beating,” Trent joked. Yet he wondered why after he’d been in the hospital for nearly an hour they were hooking him up to machines. Seemed like the longer the stay, the less need there would be for wires and tubes.
The nurse patted his shoulder when she finished and offered a half-assed smile. “Maybe the doctor just wants to keep you in your bed.” She turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
Jason laughed and leaned back in his chair. “She’s a sassy thing.”
“Cute, too,” Glen added.
That she may have been, but Trent couldn’t think of any nurse save one. “Can one of you go and find Jack Morrison or even Dr. Eddy?”
“I’ll go.” Jason released a heavy sigh and headed out into the ER.
Several seconds passed in silence. When Trent’s gaze met his brother’s, he squirmed in place. “What?”
Glen’s appearance always reminded Trent of their father. They shared the same cocky smile and hazel eyes. Glen turned those eyes on Trent now with a mixture of love and remorse. “We’ve missed you.”
“Oh, Jesus, Glen. I was a few hours away by plane.”
“You know what I mean. Reynard said you were planning on leaving the island before getting trapped in the cave.”
“Yeah. I was.”
Glen smiled, flashed his father’s dimples. “Figure out where you’re going to settle?”
No, he just knew that home wasn’t on the island any longer. Jason and Dr. Eddy walked in the room. Walt shook his hand.
“How’s Monica?”
“Stable.”
Trent was starting to hate that word.
“Stable and the ICU sound like the ultimate in oxymoron.”
Walt pulled up a rolling stool and sat beside Trent’s bed. The doctor glanced over at Trent’s brothers. “You mind giving us a minute?”
Glen stood and smiled. “I could use some coffee.”
Trent flashed a smile at his family as they left the room.
Once alone, Walt’s smile fell. “She’s sick,” he said. “But we’ve managed to bring her blood pressure down. We’re jumping on the antibiotics.”
“Has she woken up?”
Walt shook his head. “Not yet. But her fever is coming down, slowly. She needs to rest and we need to get her white count down before we can fix her leg.”
“Is it bad?”
“Nothing that a few screws and a steel plate won’t fix. They have a great group of orthopedic surgeons here.”
That’s good.
Walt glanced up at the monitor above Trent’s head. “It’s going to take a little time for the lab results, but I have the doctor here checking for lead and mercury poisoning on both of you.”