Tough Customer

EPILOGUE

I'M CALLING ABOUT DODGE HANLEY," SKI SAID TO DEREK Mitchell's polite but firm personal assistant who had told him that Mr. Mitchell was unavailable. "If he's there, put me through. If he's not, tell me where I can reach him."

Ski was asked to hold, and seconds later the attorney came on the line. "Deputy Nyland? This is Derek Mitchell. Marlene said you were calling about Dodge. What is it? Is he all right?"

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Mitchell." Ski delivered the news forthrightly, which he figured the attorney would appreciate. "It was a bad one. He arrested twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. CPR kept him alive. Barely.

"I didn't call you sooner because I didn't have anything solid to report until just a few minutes ago, when the cardiac surgeon came out to give us the lowdown. Dodge held on through the surgery, but the doctor used words like infarct and friable, and he didn't sugarcoat the prognosis."

"Which is what? How bad?"

"Chance of survival, fifty-fifty. And the surgeon said that's optimistic. Dodge is at risk to suffer another heart attack or a stroke. The surgeon said he'll feel a lot more confident of his survival if he's still alive forty-eight hours from now."

The silence on the other end was ponderous. Derek Mitchell's concern was palpable. He cleared his throat twice before he was able to speak. "You said 'us.' The surgeon came out to talk to 'us.'"

"How much do you know about the situation here?"

"Only that Dodge went down there to help out his daughter, whom he hadn't seen since the day she was born. I talked to him today, asked how it was going, and all he would say was 'fine.' He was crotchety and evasive, but that's typical."

Ski had to smile. "Yeah, I know." He gave the attorney a brief summary of the events that had led up to Dodge's going into the lake house to negotiate with Oren Starks. "Dodge insisted. Said he would go in with or without my sanction. Said I couldn't stop him with a team of wild horses or a Sherman tank. Said he would save those two women or die trying."

The grim irony of his vow hadn't escaped Ski. "Berry had the presence of mind to keep Starks talking, but Dodge and I were wasting precious time arguing over his plan, so I agreed to it. He was confident that he could play Starks and get him to release Berry and Caroline and then to surrender. He almost pulled it off. He faked everything except the heart attack.

"When I saw him lose his pistol, topple, I almost had a heart attack myself. I thought it was over. And it was for Starks. Dodge hadn't told me he was packing an extra handgun." Wryly he added, "He played me, too, I guess."

"Ankle holster?"

"How'd you know?"

"He's never without it."

"I know that now."

Ski glanced over at Berry, where she sat with Caroline at a table in the hospital cafeteria. The surgeon had said it would be a while before anyone could see Dodge, so they had come down for coffee. But he noticed that their cups had been left untouched. On the tabletop, their hands were tightly clasped, as if they were both dispensing and deriving comfort from the contact.

Sharing a common urgency, the two men wrapped up their conversation. "What did he say?" Berry asked when Ski rejoined her and Caroline at the table.

"Thanked me profusely for notifying him. He's going to charter a private jet to fly him and his wife here. Soon as he knows where they'll be landing, he'll text me. I'll dispatch somebody to pick them up, bring them straight here. It'll be the wee hours, probably, but he didn't want to wait until tomorrow."

None of them questioned the reason behind Derek Mitchell's haste.

Berry said, "Dodge will be glad they're here. He talks about them all the time. He loves them."

"Gauging by Mitchell's reaction, I think the feeling is mutual."

"In Dodge's mind, he doesn't deserve to be loved."

They looked at Caroline, who'd spoken in a soft voice, made even gruffer from crying. Up till then, Ski hadn't been sure she was even following their conversation. Berry leaned across the table. "What makes you say that, Mother?"

"His father told him so, by the way he treated him if not in actual words. Dodge believed him. Up to the day you were born and I ordered him out of our lives, he'd been trying to earn everyone's respect and acceptance. Everyone's love." She looked down at her hands, which she was twisting together. "Ever since that day, he's been trying to kill himself for being unlovable."

Ski agreed with Caroline, and he figured Berry did, too, although they weren't going to say so, because that would lay unfair blame at Caroline's doorstep. Dodge had willfully cheated. By doing so, he had thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to him. Caroline had taken a position and refused to back down. Neither had won.

The loss to both had been enormous, and it had defined the paths their lives would take for the next thirty years. Years that could have been happier for all of them. If only he'd been faithful. If only her rejection hadn't been absolute.

Caroline's cell phone rang. Knowing that she'd given her number to the ICU nurse, they all reacted with alarm. Bracing herself for the worst, Caroline answered.

She listened for several seconds, then said, "I'll be right there," and disconnected. She was trembling as she pushed back her chair and stood up. "He's regaining consciousness."

"Thank God," Berry whispered, obviously sharing Ski's relief that the news hadn't been what they feared.

"She said if I come right now, I can see him for five minutes."

"Go," Berry said, making shooing motions with her hands. "Run. We'll be right up."

Caroline gave her a grateful look, then dashed toward the cafeteria's exit.

Berry was none too steady as she stood up. She looked at Ski through watery eyes. Then her face crumpled, and she began to cry. He reached for her and hugged her close.

"I've been holding myself together for her sake, but I can't any longer."

"Go ahead and cry."

Oblivious to the other people in the cafeteria, he stroked her back and continued to hold her as sobs shook her entire body. She might lose the father she'd just found. That was bitter. She also bore the guilt for everything that had happened, and she would carry it for a long time.

He admired her for taking up that mantle. A more shallow individual would have made self-serving excuses and shrugged it off. His admiration was also tinged with pity. He had firsthand knowledge of how heavy a burden guilt could be. Only by sheer force of will would she carry on with her life and, eventually, forgive herself. He was confident she had the fiber to do it. She was, after all, a combination of two determined, hardheaded people.

Having cried herself out, she pulled away from him, plucked a napkin from the dispenser on the table, and used it to blot her eyes and face. "Well, that was a spectacle."

"Not really, and anyway, who cares?"

She gave him a wavering smile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"We'd better get upstairs. Mother may need me."

With his hand curved around the back of her neck, Ski guided her from the cafeteria and across the lobby toward the elevator bank. One was available, and they were alone as they rode up to the ICU floor.

He bent down and gently kissed the butterfly clip above her eye. It had been required to close the gash caused by the butt of Oren Starks's pistol.

She leaned into him. "I know you have duties, responsibilities. But if you can, I'd like for you to stick around."

"I'll stick around."

She looked up into his face. "Think before you commit, Ski. It might be for quite a while, and the outcome is unsure."

Knowing that they were now talking not only about the vigil at Dodge's bedside but also about their future together, he cupped her face between his hands and touched her lips tenderly with his. "I'll stick around."

It surprised the hell out of Dodge when he came to. He had a good buzz going. Everything within his field of vision was blurry around the edges, and his overall feeling was one of languor. It felt like he had a fifty-pound weight sitting on his chest, but that was only mildly uncomfortable. The best part, Caroline was there, bending over him, stroking his hair.

So even if he was dead, his afterlife wasn't half bad. He wondered if smoking was allowed. If so, this really was heaven.

Or maybe this was just a staging area, and it could still go either way.

In fact, the weight on his chest was steadily turning into a dull ache. He had a lot to account for. He'd better get started before he was escorted to the next level. Down.

He blinked Caroline into better focus. "I skipped out."

She smiled and placed her hand on his cheek.

"Didn't say good-bye." He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. Worse than dry. It was pasty, and his tongue kept sticking to the roof of his mouth, so it was difficult to form words, not that he could think of that many. "Nothing to offer you. Then. Now. Never."

She shushed him and continued to smooth his hair off his forehead.

Dammit, he needed her to pay attention. He shook his head, only then realizing that there were tubes in his nose.

Jesus! How undignified was that? He reached up and pulled the cannula away. Or tried. Caroline replaced it, and there was nothing he could do about it because he didn't have enough energy to raise his hand again.

The dull ache had worsened, and now he remembered being wheeled down a corridor, blinding overhead lights flashing past with dizzying speed, people running alongside the gurney talking in loud, excited voices. Had a guy with a goatee actually been straddling his chest and pounding on him, or had that been a weird dream?

Had those extra-bright lights been on the ceiling of an operating room? Probably some asshole with a trophy wife, a golf club membership, and a healthy six-figure annual income had been digging around inside his chest, and that's why it felt so tight and achy.

He heard a soothing voice as if it was coming from the end of a tunnel. It said, "Only another minute, Ms. King. Then you'll have to leave."

He hadn't realized his eyes had closed until he pried them open again. Caroline was still there. He gazed into her face and thought how lucky he was to be seeing it one more time, and marveled over how beautiful she was. He felt the warm, wet trickle of his own tears. Well, this was just super. Here he was, about to die, and there were tubes in his nostrils, and he was crying like a complete puss.

He forced his thick tongue to move before his final minute in this staging area was up, and Caroline would be lost to him forever. "Sorry I was..."

Shit. Sixty seconds wasn't enough time to list all the things he was sorry for. He just needed to tell her how much he loved her, had always loved her and always would. But he had to hurry because the stranger with the soothing voice was injecting something into the tube in his arm. Instantly he felt a rush of honeyed heat and sublimity. It was great fuckin' stuff, but as good as it was, he fought its effects.

He must say what needed to be said to Caroline, and he must say it in a way that would encompass the immensity of his love.

He groped for her hand, found it, squeezed it with all the strength he had. "I'd die for you all over again."

She turned his hand and pressed his palm against her heart. It beat steadily, strongly against his hand. She bent down and kissed his lips. Not gently. But with ardor, the way she used to when she was either really aroused or really pissed off.

When she pulled back, she whispered, "I know you love me enough to die for me, Dodge. Do you love me enough to live?"

Damn the woman! He couldn't leave now. Now that she'd given him something more to prove.