“And what do you think Charlie would want?”
“That’s the thing. Charlie doesn’t get to tell us what she would want, does she?” asks Maddox. “Wendy took that away from her.”
Of all of them, it’s these words that pierce my heart.
I glance backward down the hall where my friend lies sleeping in a room, in a slumber I’m not confident she’ll ever wake up from. I’ve considered it—what Charlie’s response might be when she wakes. If I could guarantee that she wanted me here, I would say I wouldn’t leave her side until she woke up. But Maddox is right. Charlie doesn’t get to tell us what she wants. And if she is going to die, there’s something about the idea of having the person who murdered her at her bedside that feels insulting.
I think I could handle it if she woke and hated me—if she saw me and screamed for me to get out. But if she passes from this life to the next, and she wouldn’t have wanted me there… I don’t know if I can carry that question with me for the rest of my life. Whether or not I unknowingly dishonored what would have been her last wishes.
“I’m not moving her until she’s ready,” says Nolan. “I’m sorry, Maddox.”
I slip out the door and pad toward them. I see both men flinch when they hear me coming. I pause a good distance away.
“How much did you overhear?” asks Nolan.
“Enough,” I say.
“We don’t have to go yet,” Nolan says.
“But Maddox is right. I don’t know if Charlie will want me here when she wakes up. And I took away any chance she had of asking me if I—but never mind that. This place—” I look around at the beautiful cottage behind me, the one that was supposed to hold my last lovely memories with my husband. There’s nothing about this beach that is comforting now. Only six weeks ago, I could look out upon it and see the waves, the sea stretching for miles without a soul in sight. It felt peaceful.
Now it just feels empty, echoing my wound. Empty as my arms and my breasts. But then I think of Michael. Michael, who simply assumes that there’s strength within me.
I take a breath, then turn to Nolan, setting my brow. “I’m getting our son back.”
Nolan blinks. Works his jaw. He looks me up and down, assessing me, and I know what his assessment will find. Weakness that goes deeper than my body needing to recover from labor. Perhaps he believes that my mind has finally split open.
“Darling, you’re still recovering. I know your heart is broken. Mine is as well, but…”
“Even so, I’m getting him back.”
Nolan must glimpse the determination in my stance, because he closes his mouth and nods, eyes watering.
“Of course we’re getting him back,” says a voice from behind us.
Maddox’s head jerks up.
I spin around.
Charlie is standing in the doorway, leaning against it with one hand, looking pale, but upright. “And Maddox, surely you’re not leaving?”
“Charlie,” I say, “I’m so, so sorry.” I want nothing more than to run to my friend, but again I hesitate, partly because I’mafraid I’ll touch her and injure her further. Partly because I’m not sure where we stand.
She waves her hand at me, still clutching her injured side. Hopefully she hasn’t reopened the wound by getting up, and hopefully she’s not gripping her side because she’s trying to keep her bandage on.
But I wouldn’t put it past her.
“You know, I always did want to know how much it would hurt,” she says. “I was always just too cowardly to ask anyone to actually shoot me. I must say, I did pretty good.”
Then Charlie’s eyes roll back in her head, and she collapses.
CHAPTER 47
The healer arrives an hour later, Nolan having run to town to fetch him. Maddox had been by Charlie’s side when the healer arrived. He’d carried her back to the bedroom, muttering under his breath, sounding too worried to be fully elated. Like he thought perhaps Charlie waking up for a brief moment was just a cruel joke.
The three of us had been standing outside the bedroom while the healer examined Charlie. He’d invited Maddox in when he was done, a serious look on his brow.
When, half an hour later, Maddox leaves the bedroom and returns to the hall, my eyes widen. I want so badly to ask if she’s okay—what the healer said, if she’s going to make it—but when I open my mouth to ask, Maddox just shakes his head, then flips it to the side, gesturing me inside the room.
