She nodded, glancing down at Caleb’s lifeless body, knowing Harper couldn’t see her. “Make sure they hurry.”
* * *
Katie sat in the hospital room in the chair across from Caleb’s bed. Caleb was asleep, but each time she moved in her chair, he stirred in bed. She didn’t want to wake him. He needed his rest. So did she. But she wasn’t leaving here until she at least had a chance to talk with him and know for sure that he was going to be all right as the doctor had said.
After twenty minutes of staring at Caleb’s peaceful face as he slept, she realized she was shivering. So she got up from the chair and grabbed her coat that she’d flung off over the back of it. Then she curled into a ball and pulled the jacket over her body like a blanket. Just as she was settled, she heard Caleb moan. She pushed the coat off her body and did nothing to stop it from falling to the floor. Then she bolted to her feet.
“Did I wake you?” she asked.
“I knew you were here.” His voice was groggy, most likely from the pain meds the nurse just injected into his IV.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I know you’re not, but I just… Never mind. I know you need to rest.” She quickly grabbed her jacket from the floor, pushed her arms through the sleeves, and began to zip it up.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said.
Her heart fluttered and she knew it shouldn’t. For God’s sake, Caleb was lying in a hospital bed because of her. Because she didn’t know what the hell she was doing down at the chapel and she’d relied on him to help. He could have been killed.
Keeping her coat on, she sat back down in the chair. “You really do need your rest. But I’ll stay little while longer,” she said. His hand was stretched out on the bed and she longed to reach for it. But he hadn’t invited her to so. It was such a simple thing. Touching his hand. Feeling that connection. She’d been so scared. And yet it felt like a boundary she couldn’t cross.
“Stop it, Katie.” He looked at her with only one eye open and the other at half-mast as if he were fighting to fully wake up and fighting against the pain meds.
“What am I doing? Tell me what you need.”
“I need you to stop blaming yourself from my being here. It’s not your fault.”
Tears she’d been holding back out of fear filled her eyes. “You don’t have to let me off the hook. I should’ve known better. I should’ve known that the snow on the roof was too heavy and I shouldn’t have gone inside until the roofer came to inspect it.”
“I went in there on my own. You didn’t force me.”
“But only because you knew I’d do it myself.”
He smiled weakly. “Seems I’m always doing that, aren’t I?”
She chuckled and fought from sobbing at the same time. Emotion lodged in her throat making it difficult for her to trust her own voice.
“I don’t know why.”
“Why what?”
“You keep coming back. Lord knows I’ve given you enough trouble for a lifetime. You probably wish you did arrest me that first night.”
“Something tells me…it wouldn’t have made a difference. You would have gone back as soon as you were bailed out.”
She laughed, but it was a totally ugly-crying kind of laugh that made her want to hide her face with her hands.
“I’m fine, Katie. It’s not your fault.”
He was trying to comfort her. It should have been the other way around.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Caleb. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t leave.”
She hadn’t gotten up from the chair yet. But now that she knew Caleb was going to be okay, she was about to leave. She couldn’t handle his letting her off the hook..
“I should have known better,” she said.
“No, I should have. I knew that roof was a problem. Putting up that caution tape should have been the first…the first thing I did…when I got there. The way…that beam came down, it could have easily been you or one of the contractors who got hit.”
The meds were taking effect. Caleb’s eyes kept drifting closed, and then he’d force them open.
“Can I bring you something tomorrow?” she asked.
“Huckleberry,” he whispered.
She smiled. Huckleberry was a native delight in Montana. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing huckleberry coffee, or chocolate, or coffee cake, or pie.
“I will,” she said, standing up and gazing down at him. He’d fallen asleep and that was a good thing. He needed his rest.
She touched his hand, no longer caring that he hadn’t offered it to her. She needed to feel his warmth rather than the cold she’d felt earlier. Then she walked out of the hospital room and walked down the hall toward the elevator. The first thing she’d do when she got into her car would be to call Kas.
* * *
It had been over twenty-four hours since Katie’s brother, Kasper, and his fiancée, Tabby, had flown in from New York City. In those twenty-four hours, Katie hadn’t heard a single “I told you so” from her big brother. Of course, she had made herself scarce, giving Kas one excuse after the other about work and going to the hospital to see Caleb as a reason she couldn’t be home.
But it was Sunday and she wasn’t working. She knew that Kas would only let her avoid him for so long before he confronted her about what had happened on the chapel grounds.
After showering and getting into a pair of comfortable jeans and an oversized cotton sweater, she emerged from her bedroom and found Kas at the kitchen table staring into his mug of coffee.
“It’s that interesting, is it?” she asked, trying to fill the air with some humor before she took the bull by the horns and they dove into a serious conversation.
Kas barely
