April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance Read online

  “Mr. Lowell, how do you feel your mental state is?”

  “I’m fine,” Hayden said. “I have my bad days, but everyone does.”

  “Nurse Hunter? Do you agree with that statement?” the doctor asked.

  “He’s combative. There are days where his pride gets in the way of a lot of things. Like me helping him with basic bathing techniques and getting frustrated during his physical therapy. He’s cut those sessions shy more than a handful of times,” I said.

  Hayden’s eyes were hard on me. Trying to intimidate me. But I was going to be as honest as I possibly could. I wasn’t going to let him get himself into a surgery procedure that wasn’t going to fit with the outcome of his mental state. It would only cause him to fail in his recuperation and maim him for the rest of his life.

  “I think what Grace is trying to say-”

  “I told you what I was trying to say,” I said.

  The doctor nodded slowly before he made a few more notes. I sat on my hands to keep them from trembling. Hip replacement surgery. That was the easiest. The most straight-forward. The surgery that required the least amount of risk.

  Anything else wouldn't do. Not with his attitude, not with his fortitude, and not with his combattance.

  “Well, taking all of this into consideration, I want to talk to you about an experimental procedure,” the doctor said.

  Oh, no.

  Oh, shit.

  “What procedure?” Hayden asked.

  “It’s still in the testing stages, and lucky for you we’re one of the hospitals testing it out. But I need to be upfront with you, there’s only a fifty percent chance you’ll regain full mobility with this surgery.”

  I shook my head as my lips parted in shock.

  “Hayden, with hip replacement surgery-”

  “Would I have full mobility after hip replacement surgery?” he asked.

  I whipped my head over to him and tried to find the right response.

  “No,” the doctor said. “You wouldn’t. That’s the limitation to that specific surgery. That’s also the reason why this technique is being developed. It has the chance to give people with hip issues full mobility back even with the extensive amount of scarring that takes place over time with something like this.”

  “Then tell me about it,” Hayden said.

  “I don’t think this is-”

  “Know your place, Nurse Hunter.”

  My eyes panned up to his as my heart shattered. Know my place. That was what he wanted. The doctor looked over at me with pity in his eyes as I sunk back into my chair. I hoped he was witnessing this. How combative and controlling Hayden could be. Because if he got himself into any experimental surgery and didn’t want to follow my instructions explicitly, he would risk everything.

  “Continue, Doctor.”

  “The surgery is still dangerous. Setting aside the fifty percent change of full mobility, the risk of death is something to consider. We’re move around a lot of major muscle groups and veins in order to make this kind of surgery happen, and other hospitals have lost patients to this procedure.”

  I felt my stomach turn upside down at his comment.

  “What does the procedure entail exactly?” Hayden asked.

  “It starts out like a normal hip replacement. We go in, remove the damaged parts of the socket, file everything down and make it smooth again. But instead of replacing everything with a template metal ball bearing, we bring in a sterilized 3-D printer and take internal scans of your hip pocket. It constructs a very sturdy, stable, non-biodegradable hip implant made specifically for your body, and then we put that in. We weave all the muscles and veins back together piece by piece to lock everything in, then we sew you up from the inside out. That gives the muscles the best chance at healing the way they need to with minimal scarring. Advantages are huge though, never another surgery. That new hip will outlive you by a hundred years. No wobbly walking, or concerns of reinjury. You’ll look and feel like this was all a bad dream. But after surgery, the physical therapy is extensive. That little comment you just made to your nurse?”

  I rose my eyes up to the doctor’s as Hayden’s gaze panned over to me.

  “It can’t happen. She’s in complete and full control of your recovery. If you make it out of surgery, that’s the only way this can take place. If you give her one hundred percent control.”

  I felt tears spring to my eyes as I turned my gaze out the window. An experimental surgery that could kill him? Possibly maim him for life? How was this even an option? Hayden wasn’t their science project. He was a prominent man in their community. I tried my best to keep my emotions at bay as the men kept talking. I followed my order to the letter… I didn’t speak unless I was spoken to. I couldn't. Because I knew if I did, I would be protesting my hatred for this procedure.

  Because I’d fallen in love with Hayden.

  I didn’t want anything to happen to him. I didn’t want him to die on the table. I didn’t want him to risk absolutely everything for a procedure that only had a fifty percent chance of working. But I knew Hayden and I knew his stubbornness and I knew he would consent.

  And I knew I didn’t have a choice other than to follow his lead.

  I felt he could still have a full life with only partial mobility. Or even in his chair. I knew he saw it as a hindrance, but we were making strides towards something better. Something greater. He was out grocery shopping without the disguises he was wearing and I was able to get him out to another movie. He was accepting the chair, and I knew he could accept partial mobility in his hip if it meant walking and returning to a life on two feet.

  I wanted to punch his fucking doctor in the throat.

  “Nurse Hunter?”

  “Yes?” I asked as I turned my gaze towards the doctor.

  “How does all of that sound?”

  “Do I really have a choice?” I asked.

  “You’re his nurse,” the doctor said. “You have input.”

  “I don’t,” I said plainly. “Whatever Mr. Lowell chooses to do, I’ll help him as best as I can.”

  “I hope you realize how wonderful of a nurse Miss Hunter is,” the doctor said. “I’ll get you set up with the O.R. If you sit here, I can have a date and time for you within the next fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks, Doctor,” Hayden said. “We’ll be here.”

  I sighed as the door to the office closed. I felt Hayden’s hand come down onto mine, but I ripped myself away. I didn’t want to look at him. Or speak to him. Or even think about him.

  “That comment was uncalled for,” he said.

  “You bet your sweet ass it was,” I said flatly.

  “Grace-”

  “This could kill you, Hayden.”

  I whipped my watery gaze to look at him and I could see he was taken aback by it.

  “This surgery has a fifty-fifty shot of killing you right there in that O.R., and the only thing you can see is walking with full mobility. Do you have any idea how many things our bodies actually do with full hip mobility?”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “You’re damn right I am. Thirty positions. There are only thirty positions the average male body is capable of that requires full hip mobility.”

  “Well, I don’t have an average body.”

  “You sure as hell have an average mind.”

  “Need I remind you that you’re still under my employ?” he asked.

  “And need I remind you that your doctor just told you that unless you give me full and complete control, you won’t even come out of this. Assuming you get off that table. You could risk your life and go through all of this and still be stuck in that chair, Hayden!”

  “What would you have me do!? Huh? Stay in this damn thing for the rest of my life? Settle for second-best when there’s the promise of the best?”

  “Why are you willing to risk your life for this? Why is this so important to you?” I asked. “Because I’ve been unable to walk, and the o
nly thing it kept me from doing was-”

  “My image is everything, Grace. And I don’t expect you to understand that. This wheelchair? It’s a sign of weakness. A sign my company can’t bear to have. If I come into work and attempt to run my company when I’m staring at the crotches of every fucking client that comes walking through my door, they’ll unseat me in a heartbeat to save their own reputation.”

  “You own the damn thing, Hayden! Change the rules!”

  “It isn’t that simple!”

  I drew in a deep breath as I sat back deeply into my seat.

  “This isn’t that serious, Grace. And not walking isn’t an option for me. If there’s a chance I could resume my life as normal, then I’m taking it. And I know you understand that.”

  I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep myself from agreeing with him. Because the truth was, I did.

  The two of us sat there in silence as the doctor came back into the room. And sure enough, we had us scheduled for Thursday morning at eight. In two days, Hayden would go under the knife and none of us knew if he would make it out alive.

  And the thing about it?

  Hayden didn’t seem to care.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hayden

  “You aren’t staying.”

  “You don’t have a choice in the matter,” Grace said.

  “I’ll be fine. I’m in the best doctor’s care for this.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You aren’t needed until I get home.”

  “You keep telling me I’m not needed, and then you call on me thirty minutes later. For all I know, you’ll wake up in the middle of the surgery and demand a cup of coffee,” she said.

  “You’re not staying.”

  “You don’t have a choice. You’ll be out in twenty minutes anyway. So focus on that,” she said.

  Grace was stubborn, and the last couple of days had been rough. Every time I turned around, that woman was angry at something. And it wasn’t doing wonders for my mindset for this surgery. For a nurse who touted that my mental state was important, she sure was doing a number on it.

  “Okay, Miss Hunter. It’s time to get him into the O.R.”

  Grace reached out for my hand and squeezed it, then she turned around and left. The doctors rolled me down the hallway and into the freezing room, and the last thing I remembered was being asked to count down backwards from ten.

  And when I woke up, the pain was unbearable.

  “Breathe, Hayden. Deep breaths.”

  Grace?

  Was that Grace’s voice?

  I heard footsteps around me and people poking me with different instruments. Tears were welling in my eyes as the pain ricocheted up my side. It felt like I’d been hit by that damn car again. Like my body had been catapulted off the side of the Empire State Building. I felt someone petting my head as people pulled up the sheets that covered my body, and soon a wave of pain caused me to heave.

  “There you go. That’s it. Let it out.”

  Grace.

  With her fingers running through my hair.

  I wasn’t sure how long the surgery had been or if I was even alive. There were times where there was nothing but darkness and then there were times where I could hear my mother’s voice. My sister’s voice.

  Grace’s voice.

  “You sure you’re talking about our Hayden?” my sister asked.

  “I am. He was stubborn in the beginning, but he warmed up to things. I’ve gotten him out to see two movies,” Grace said.

  “I can’t believe it. I couldn't even get him to move away from the window,” my mother said.

  Then darkness overtook me again and I slipped back into a slumber.

  In and out I went until I didn’t know what day it was. What week it was. What month it was. And every single time I came to, just for a moment, I could hear my mother and my sister grilling Grace.

  And she was answering every question in stride.

  “So he’s your first private patient?”

  “Is this what you want to do with the rest of your life?”

  “Really? We should change those flowers? I never knew. I might give it a shot.”

  I wanted to jump in and tell them to stop throwing questions at her. I knew what they were doing. They were trying to dig up information on me, or push her away, or try to convince her she wasn’t needed any longer. But I wasn’t about to go back into the care of my mother and my sister.

  I’d rather burn in Hell than experience that again.

  “He’s been dead for a few years,” my mother said.

  “Ironically enough, he died in a car accident,” my sister said.

  “I’m so sorry,” Grace said. “What happened?”

  My father’s accident.

  They were talking about my father’s accident.

  I didn’t want to be awake for that conversation. I’d relived that horror enough in my life. I slowed down my mind and stopped fighting the darkness creeping at the corners of my mind. I allowed the slumber to take me back under as images of him swirled around in my mind.

  But when my mind stopped, it wasn't on my father.

  It was on Grace.

  She was smiling and laughing as she reached for my hand. The two of us were running up a hill. Towards a massive tree covered in snow even though the sun was shining bright in the sky. She pulled us underneath the cool shade of it and wrapped her arms around me, and I could feel her soft body pressed against mine. I watched her lips fall to my chest as my hand stroked through her hair, but then I lost my balance.

  Tumbled backwards.

  Cried out for her as her hands reached out for me.

  I jolted awake and started breathing heavily. The room was dark and the beeping of the monitors filled my ears. I fumbled around for the morphine button I’d felt Grace searching for before. The pain was excruciating and it was hard to breathe. My hand moved around as tears welled again in my eyes, and for a moment I thought I was alone. I thought she had done what I’d asked and left.

  And I panicked.

  “It’s okay. I’m right here. Settle down, Hayden. Hold on.”

  Her voice. Filled with so much sleep and so much worry. I felt her breath pulsing against my ear. I pressed my head against her, feeling the warmth of her lips as she reached for the control in my hands. The beeping of the button rang out into the room, and I quickly felt sleeping taking me under again.

  I turned my face towards her and our eyes connected, and for a brief moment I debated on whether or not to kiss her.

  She was here. And my heart soared at that fact.

  “Sleep, Hayden,” she said. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  That was the phrase she kept chanting to me. Over and over again, every time I woke up. My recuperation in the hospital took two weeks because of complications, but I weathered every single one of them with her at my side. The onset of infection, the draining of fluid. The fear of my body rejecting the implant. All of it, weighing on my mind. And all of it fought head-on with her hand slid delicately into the palm of mine.

  My sister and my mother were there frequently, but she was the one staying with me at night.

  And for some reason, that gave me peace.

  After three weeks of lying in a hospital bed, my physical therapy started. It was almost unfathomable that they wanted me already up on my feet at this point, and it was frustrating. If the pain wasn’t blinding, then it was my leg. Wobbly and unstable, and nothing like I thought it would be. It was like I was having to retrain myself how to walk. Like I was some idiotic toddler who was struggling with the basics of moving.

  And every time I went to fall to the floor, Grace was there to catch me.

  Sometimes, I could feel her body trembling with exhaustion. Catching me time after time, making sure my knees didn’t hit the floor. I was thankful to have her there, but I knew how much this was all weighing on her. She would’ve never had to do all this had I just listen
ed to her.

  Guilt poured into my chest every time she struggled to get me back up onto my feet.

  “This isn’t working,” I said through my teeth. “It’s too soon.”

  “Even with the replacement, you would’ve been up after three weeks. Complications or not. You can do this,” Grace said. “I know you can.”

  “No, I can’t. We’ve been at this for an entire week, and I can’t even hold myself upright without these damn bars.”

  “What did you expect?” she asked. “That you’d stroll out of here with your head held high after major experimental surgery?”

  I grunted at her question, refusing to respond. Because the stubborn part of me did think that.

  Even though the rational part of me knew it wasn’t possible.

  “I have something we can try, if you’d let me take control,” Grace said.

  “Fine. Whatever. Anything to get me through this damn hour so I can go back to bed,” I said.

  “Put your arms on the bar and hold yourself up. I’m going to the other end.”

  I propped myself up and lifted my head, watching her as she appeared on the other side. There was a small grin on her face as she stepped between the bars. Her hands fell to either side and she pushed herself up, then I watched as she did tricep dips right in front of me. Ten of them. Without batting an eye or getting winded.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Try them,” she said. “Then stand to your feet.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it, you stubborn man.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I followed her command. I pushed myself up and did ten tricep dips, then I landed myself back onto my foot.

  “Now, gently put your other foot on the floor and even out your weight distribution.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Stand like a normal person, Hayden.”

  “You don’t have to be so mean about it,” I said with a grin.

  Gingerly, I planted my foot down onto the floor. Pain shot up my back, but I didn’t feel myself stumble. I looked up at Grace and I saw that twinkle in her eye. That twinkle that told me she was onto something.

  “Okay. Do the dips again, but then come down on both feet.”