Chapter 19 - The Life That Mattered

Ronin recovered without a trip to the doctor’s office or hospital. I needed to see him get sick in a normal way and recover without incident. If he couldn’t be a true immortal, I could settle for a really strong mortal with a properly functioning immune system.

Lunch with Lila put the countdown clock in motion for me to make up with Graham. I said I would talk to him, but I had no idea what I was supposed to say. So instead of insisting he meet me for lunch or showing up announced at his office, I made the ultimate gesture—the ultimate sacrifice.

I invited him and Lila to go skiing with me and Ronin.

“Why did you do this?” Ronin shot me a side glance as we pulled into the parking lot of the resort.

“I told you. I knew Graham wouldn’t say no to watching me make a fool of myself. He knows I hate to ski, so this gesture says a lot without me having to actually say much at all.”

“Nothing says sorry quite like a broken arm or blown-out knee.” Ronin chuckled, opening his door and retrieving my skis from the rack.

“I have you. And you’ll have my back. Right?” I slipped on my jacket and grabbed my ski boots.

Ronin locked the doors and took my hand. “Always.”

We waited in the lodge for Lila and Graham to arrive. I loaded up on hot chocolate, knowing I’d freeze my ass off when we got up the mountain because I’d spend so much time on my ass.

“There they are.” Ronin nodded toward the door.

I stood, drawing in a deep breath.

Lila hugged me first, and then she hugged Ronin, leaving me standing in front of Graham. He did nothing to ease the tension or make my job easy. I squirmed under his emotionless gaze, his wordless scrutiny.

“I don’t hate you,” I mumbled, forcing my gaze to his.

“Is that an apology, Evelyn?”

Did he have to be smug about it?

“Yep.”

Gah!

I couldn’t help it. Graham had a PhD in arrogance. I knew he’d take an apology as an outright admission of total wrongdoing on my part. While I was wrong to say I hated him, the emotions that led to that misstep in words were very justified. They were the day I said it. And even after lunch with Lila, I still felt some anger and resentment toward Graham for allowing so much distance—or putting so much distance—between my best friend and me when I needed her the most.

“Hug it out, you two.” Lila nudged my arm.

Graham made no effort to ease my apology burden. He just stood there with no sign of remorse, not the tiniest bit of shared guilt evident anywhere on his body.

I wrapped my arms around his torso and hugged him. He didn’t hug me back.

Jerk!

After releasing him, I turned and gave Lila a tight smile—an I-tried smile. Before I could take more than two steps, Graham’s long arm hooked my waist, pulling my back to his chest as his chin rested on my shoulder.

“You’re stubborn, Evelyn. Outspoken. Bossy. And … stubborn. But I forgive you.”

Lila and Ronin grinned at Graham’s display. Everything had to be on his terms.

The hug.

The apology acceptance, even though I didn’t actually extend a real apology.

“Lucky me,” I mumbled.

As Lila turned toward Ronin to give him a grin, because her pleasure over Graham and I making up was obvious on her face, Graham kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, “I miss you.”

His rise to governor hadn’t changed him as much as I thought it had. He still excelled at being an asshole with me one minute and reminding me why I loved him as my friend the next minute.

“I miss you too.” I leaned my head against his and sighed.

“Careful …” Lila smirked. “People are taking photos. I can already see the front-page news story tomorrow: Governor Porter shows PDA toward his mistress in front of his wife.”

“Well…” I wiggled out of Graham’s hold on me. “We definitely wouldn’t want that.”

“Let’s go! I can’t wait to see what Evelyn’s learned from Ronin. I bet she’s going to school us today.” Lila looped her arm through mine and led me toward the door.

Ronin followed behind us with Graham. They both chuckled. No one could ever say I didn’t make huge sacrifices for my friends.

I made it down two runs without breaking anything, but I feared pushing my luck wasn’t a great idea since I needed to be in one piece to take care of two kids and be there for my mom.

“I’m done. There’s a hot drink and chocolate chip cookie calling my name in the lodge.” Hugging Ronin, I buried my cold face into his warm neck.

“But you were just getting the hang of it.”

I giggled. “I was so not getting the hang of it. It’s best for me to quit while I’m ahead. Now you can have some actual fun.”

“What makes you think I wasn’t having fun?”

I lifted onto my toes and kissed him. “Humor me and try to have fun without me. Then we’ll find a different kind of fun to have later.”

“You’ve thrown down the gauntlet now, babe. There’s no picking it back up.”

“As if I would want to.” Biting his lower lip, I playfully tugged it. “Go be awesome. Put Graham and Lila in their place.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Finally, things felt right again. Making up with my friends didn’t cure my mom’s cancer. It didn’t dissolve the stress of their jobs or guarantee that I would get to see them more frequently. Just like I couldn’t rush winter or slow down summer, Graham and Lila were in a different season of their lives than Ronin and me. If I wanted to keep my relationship with them, I had to accept that.

After my cookie and hot tea, I found a comfy chair in the lodge by the fireplace and drifted off to sleep. Sue had our kids while I took a nap—a rare, yet glorious opportunity.

“Ma’am?”

I peeled open one eye, unsure of how long I’d been asleep—but it felt like quite a while. An hour or two? A man I vaguely recognized from Graham’s security detail stood above me, lips pressed into a firm line.

“Ma’am, I need you to come with me.”

“Where? Why?” I sat up straight.

“There’s been an accident.”

Sitting up straighter, I combed my fingers through my hair. “What do you mean accident?” I stood, leaning to the side to see past him, looking for Graham, Ronin, or Lila.

“I’m not at liberty to go into detail. I apologize. Governor Porter asked me to escort you to the hospital.”

Sliding my phone out of my pocket, I tried to call Ronin, but he didn’t answer. Then I tried Lila. It went straight to voicemail. And while I didn’t expect to reach Graham, I tried him anyway as I followed the man out to an SUV and climbed in the back as he held the door open for me.

“Evelyn …” Graham answered. “Did Barry find you? You … you need to get here.” That voice wasn’t my Graham Cracker’s, my best friend’s husband, and it definitely wasn’t the governor’s. The voice was too tortured, too broken, too insecure.

“Graham, what’s going on? You’re scaring me. Where’s Lila and Ronin?” I gripped my phone tighter as I gazed out the window at the busy late afternoon traffic on the streets of Aspen.

“She …” his voice cracked.

She.

Lila.

“Graham!”

“She got off course. I … I don’t know how. And she fell … Jesus, Evelyn … it’s like she fell off the side of the fucking mountain. It was so far.”

Biting my lips together, I swallowed hard as everything outside of the window blurred behind my tears. “Is she …?” I couldn’t say it.

“I don’t know. They’re working on her. She wasn’t breathing. Ronin did everything he could. They airlifted her out, and he went with her, straddling her, compressing her chest over and over. God … what if she doesn’t …”

The line went dead. I let my phone fall to my lap, feeling numb—frozen. Maybe it was a nightmare. Maybe I was still asleep at the lodge, and the man who resembled one of Graham’s security guards was an illusion. After all, Graham didn’t sound like himself. It had to be a nightmare, so I rubbed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, pinching the skin on my arm.

Nothing changed.

I was still in the same vehicle, staring at the back of the man who, in spite of my heart not wanting it to be true, was real.

Everything was real.

Reality fucking sucked.

* * *

The burly, buzz-haired blond in a black suit drove me to the hospital and escorted me to a waiting room on the fourth floor.

“Graham.”

He looked up from his hunched over position in the chair, slightly hidden by the two other security guys who stood with their backs to him. Graham didn’t look like an heir to one of the wealthiest families or the governor. Stripped of his tailored suit and a solid portion of his dignity, he looked almost unrecognizable to me.

Dark jeans with wrinkles like the anguish on his face.

Black snow boots.

Charcoal thermal shirt, half untucked.

Dark, sweaty hair that looked like his hands had tortured it a million times.

But the anguish on his face was most unrecognizable.

My friend was a pillar of strength and confidence, just like my husband—only Graham always had an aura of arrogance. That was gone. The only aura he possessed in that moment was one of devastation.

“Graham.” I shoved my way between the two security guards, dropping to my knees and hugging Graham’s defeated body.

He embraced me in a way he’d never embraced me before. It was desperate, fragile, and heartbreaking. “She’s in surgery.”

I nodded, gripping his shirt. We held each other together.

“Where’s Ronin?”

“They’re running tests on him.”

“What?” I released Graham, scrambling to my feet.

He grabbed my hands. “Something happened.”

“What does that mean?” I tried to pull away, to go find someone who could take me to my husband.

“He stopped breathing.”

I jerked my hand from his grip and cupped it at my mouth. “W-what?”

“They brought him back. Then he seemed fine. So now they’re running tests to figure out what happened.”

“W-was he injured too? With Lila?”

Graham stared at me, more like through me, completely unblinking.

“Graham!”

His gaze jumped to mine. “N-no …” He shook his head, a complete shell of his normal self, dazed and confused. “He wasn’t injured.”

I pulled my other hand away from him and shouldered my way between the two men again to find a nurse or anyone who could give me more information on Ronin.

“Can you help me find my husband?”

The nurse behind the counter glanced up from the computer. “What’s his name?”

“Ronin Alexander. He came in with my friend after a skiing accident. He’s ski patrol. He was trying to save her, but her husband said Ronin stopped breathing.” The words tumbled from my mouth without pause, leaving me breathless.

“I ordered some tests. We’ll have him in a room shortly.” A dark-haired woman turned to face me.

I homed in on her lab coat. Dr. Christine Allyn, M.D.

“Is he okay? Why did he stop breathing? Was he injured? Did he have a stroke or heart attack?”

Cancer. Brain tumor. Fatal infection.

Something wasn’t right with Ronin. I knew it in my gut since that first trip to the hospital. But that was years earlier. Surely if it were something like cancer or an infection, he would have gotten much worse. It didn’t make sense. Was he hiding something from me or downplaying what he perceived to be a random health crises that quickly passed without any apparent cause or explanation?

“He’s stable at the moment. We haven’t yet determined the cause of the incident, but we’re working on it.”

His. Heart. Stopped. Beating.

How was that an incident? A flat tire or tripping over uneven terrain on a sidewalk was an incident.

“What about Lila Porter? Has there been an update on her?”

The doctor narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry. We’re not at liberty to disclose any information about her outside of her family.”

“Give her an update,” Graham’s monotone voice crept up behind me.

“Of course, sir.” Dr. Allyn nodded before returning her attention to me. “They’re working to stop internal bleeding and repair fractures in her leg. I don’t anticipate her being out of surgery for several more hours.”

My mind liked to visit places it didn’t belong, like trying to imagine how I would ever survive if I lost my husband, my best friend, and my mom in the span of a year.

Death.

Why did I go there? I guess internal bleeding and resuscitation opened the door to think the worst. While I didn’t always try to think the worst, I tried to prepare for it.

“If she doesn’t make it,” Graham whispered behind me.

I whipped around, grabbing his shirt in my fists. His security guys took a warning step toward me, but I ignored them. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

I thought it because one couldn’t control their thoughts. But I never would have said the words aloud. That was in my realm of control. Putting those words out there for the world to hear made them too real.

“You’d be it, Evelyn. You’d be the only person I have left.” Graham didn’t cry, but I saw his unshed tears. I heard the weight of them heavy in his voice.

His only person? How could that be? He was the governor! Rich beyond words. And surrounded by family. Arguing these points would have played into his notion that Lila wasn’t going to make it. I couldn’t do that.

And … I needed to find my husband.

Releasing Graham’s shirt, I turned back toward Dr. Allyn. “I want to know the second my husband is in a room.”

She returned an easy nod and kind smile. “Absolutely.”

Graham shadowed me as I paced the space between the desk and waiting room.

“A truce …” I shook my head. “An olive branch. I just wanted to make things right between all of us. How did it end like this? And …” I stopped, looking up at Graham. “How did she get off the run? Where were you and Ronin? I … I just don’t understand.”

His eyebrows knitted together. “We turned left after we got off the lift. Lila went right. By the time Ronin noticed she wasn’t behind us, it was too late. The run was closed.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It. Was. Closed. I … I don’t know why she ignored the signs … the fencing … but she did.” He sighed slowly and heavily. “She’s always said that rules were made to be broken.”

On a tiny headshake, I averted my gaze to the side. “After we got our first tattoos…” I twisted my wrist and ran my thumb over the carbon atom “…we vowed to break rules that held us back from really living.” Biting my upper lip, I grunted. “I’m going to have a serious talk with her when she gets out of surgery. It’s time to rethink that vow.”

“If she gets out,” Graham corrected me.

If …

“Mrs. Alexander?”

I turned toward Dr. Allyn.

“Your husband is in a room. You can see him now.”

“Want me to come with you?” Graham asked.

“Not yet. I need a minute alone with him.”

He grabbed the back of my head and kissed the top of it. “Okay.”

As I entered Ronin’s room, he forced a lopsided smile. “Evie …”

“What the hell, Roe?” I took his hand and kissed his face all over before nuzzling my nose into his neck just to feel his warmth, a reminder that his heart was beating, moving blood, facilitating breaths, loving me …

“How’s Lila?”

I sat on the edge of his bed, keeping a firm hold of his hand. “Still in surgery. What happened to you? What did they find out? Ronin …” My words broke as I lifted his hand to my lips. “Y-you stopped b-breathing.” I couldn’t stop my emotions.

“Shh …” He pulled our linked hands to his chest.

I rested my cheek next to him, counting every heartbeat.

“My heart paused for a few seconds. That’s all.”

“Don’t …” I squeaked out as more tears flowed from tired eyes. “Don’t downplay this. Someone has to explain this to me. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Am I interrupting?” Another doctor peeked her head around the corner, tucking her ebony hair behind her ear, revealing her perfect brown skin and kind eyes. “I’m Dr. Waters.” She held out her hand to me.

“Evelyn.” I released Ronin’s hand and shook Dr. Waters’ hand. “Please tell me you know what’s wrong with Ronin.”

She returned a slight grimace, hugging her tablet to her chest. “I don’t yet. Everything came back within normal range. We’re going to keep running tests and go over a thorough medical history, Ronin. We’ll continue to monitor your heart. If we don’t see anything abnormal, you can go home in a day or so. However, I’d like you to wear a heart monitor over the next few weeks. At this point, we don’t know what caused your heart to stop beating.”

“How can you not know?” I stood, raising my voice because we weren’t talking about a mysterious rash or a high fever.

He. Stopped. Breathing!

“Evelyn.” Ronin grabbed my wrist. “It’s not her fault.”

Dr. Waters rubbed her lips together, waiting for the right time to speak, or maybe she was searching for the right words to say.

“If this were your husband, your father, a son, or a best friend, wouldn’t you need to know? Wouldn’t you stop at nothing to figure out why this happened? How am I supposed to take him home with no idea if or when his heart could stop again? We have two children. They can’t watch their father die!”

She mirrored the anguish I felt—which was probably plastered to my face. I appreciated that, but it solved nothing. I had family and friends to offer sympathy. Dr. Waters needed to give me more. She needed to give me answers and solutions.

“This could be Long Q-T syndrome, a disorder with your heart’s electrical system. It’s rare, but clearly not impossible. Medications can cause this, but since you’re not taking any medications, I want to look into congenital Long Q-T syndrome. Do you know if anyone in your family has had this condition?”

Ronin shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“Well, that’s something we’ll want you to confirm. In the meantime, I want to schedule an exercise stress test, and as I said earlier, have you wear an ambulatory monitor. If there’s a family history, it’s possible we can treat this with gene therapy. Again, more information about your health history and your family’s will help.”

“I’m calling your mom.” I reached for my phone.

Ronin narrowed his eyes, not looking at me or Dr. Waters. “Okay,” he mumbled.

“Why do you look confused? Or are you in pain?” I rested my hand on his arm.

After a few more quick headshakes, he gave me a barely detectable smile. “It’s nothing. Call my mom. They’ll happily help with my family health history.”

“I want to go over your health history again with you to make sure we’re not missing something.” Dr. Waters took a seat on a stool next to Ronin’s bed.

“I’ll go out in the hallway to call your mom.” I pointed toward the door.

Neither Ling nor Victor answered their phones, so I left a quick message to let them know something happened, Ronin was okay (even though I wasn’t convinced of that), and I needed them to call me back.

“How’s he doing?” Graham caught me just before I walked back into Ronin’s room.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean … fine, except for that minor detail that his heart stopped. And they don’t know why. Any news on Lila?”

Graham rubbed the back of his neck, dropping his chin to his chest. “Not yet. I demanded an update as soon as possible, but I have yet to hear from one of her doctors.”

“Well, you’re the governor and a Porter, so if they haven’t taken the time to give you an update, it must mean they’re busy keeping our girl alive. Right?”

“Yeah …” he murmured.