Sins and Scarlet Lace

chapter TWENTY-TWO

The waiting seemed endless.

Sophia remembered what it was like to sit in a waiting room full of MacKenzies. The way they leaned on each other and told stories of the past to fill the time. They included her just as they had the last time, but this time she had Declan sitting healthy in the seat next to her, so the time didn’t go by in an invisible blur as it had once before.

“He’ll be just fine,” Declan’s mother said for what was probably the thousandth time. “My boys have too much fight in them and are too stubborn to do anything but kick death in the teeth.” Her voice wavered and her husband pulled her in close for a hug.

Mary MacKenzie didn’t shed tears easily, but Sophia could tell she was close to the breaking point. She’d been holding on by a thread for almost twenty-four hours. Thomas came out occasionally with updates, but all he could say was they were doing their best to stabilize him. The last update had been six hours ago.

“She said the same thing when it was you,” Sophia told Dec quietly. “She’s a remarkable woman. I can see why her sons are as just as amazing.”

She and Declan occupied a corner bench, sitting slightly away from the rest of the family. Thomas had insisted she be checked out as well, so her head was bandaged and all of her cuts bandaged. Her head still throbbed, but they’d given her something for the pain so it was bearable, and Thomas had loaned her a pair of blue surgical scrubs since her clothes had been ruined.

“This hell is what you went through when it was me in the operating room,” Dec said. “I knew you were waiting for me. I could hear you in my mind telling me it would all be okay. And I believed you because you never lied to me.” He rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. “I love you, Sophia. I’m not sure I can ever tell you enough.”

He took her hand and squeezed it once.

“I love you, too. I’m glad we got a second chance to do it right this time.”

The waiting room door opened and Thomas stepped inside. He wasn’t the surgeon who’d worked on Shane, but they’d let him stay and observe. The look on his face had Declan rising to his feet and pulling Sophia up with him. The waiting room went quiet as they waited to hear what he had to say.

“The good news is he’s finally stable and they’ve replaced the blood loss. He’s in critical condition, but the doctor thinks he’s going to be okay. And if he doesn’t have any problems through the night he can downgrade it to serious.”

“Oh, thank God,” Mary said, throwing her arms around her husband and squeezing him tight. Declan’s dad had silver hair, but Sophia could see where Declan had gotten his looks from. James MacKenzie was a strong man, as tall and broad-shouldered as his sons, but you could see the weight of relief being lifted as he enfolded his wife in a hug and let her cry against his chest.

“What’s the bad news?” Cade asked. He stood next to his parents and had his arm around his wife, Bayleigh.

Thomas sighed and looked straight at Declan. “They weren’t able to save one of his legs. They had to take it or he wouldn’t have made it.”

Mary’s sob was muffled against her husband’s chest, and Sophia felt her own tears escape. Declan squeezed her hand so hard it hurt, but she couldn’t let go, not when his pain slammed against her like a tidal wave. Declan had worried over the leg, and he understood his brother’s request to not let them take it because he would have felt the same way. There was no way Shane would ever command his team again or go into the field, and to a man like Shane that might as well be a death sentence.

Mary pulled from her husband’s grasp and wiped her eyes with the tissue Bayleigh had handed her. “Well, now,” she said stiffening her shoulders. “What’s done is done. He’s alive and that’s all that matters, and we’ll help him deal with the rest as a family. When can we see him?”

“It’s probably going to be several more hours until they have him set up in a room.”

“Then I want everyone to go home and get some sleep,” she said, taking charge and shooing her sons and nephews toward the door.

Sophia put her arms around Declan’s waist and lay her head on his chest, taking comfort in the way he held her back.

“He’s going to have a hard time,” he whispered against her ear. “He’s the most stubborn of all of us and the most hard-headed. Accepting isn’t going to be easy for him.”

“No, he just sounds like another MacKenzie I know. But maybe it’ll help him work through it to know that you have a place for him in your company. Something that doesn’t require sitting behind a desk.”

She felt his smile against her temple and breathed in the solidness of the man she’d love for eternity. “You must be a mind reader. I was just thinking that exactly. You told me before that you needed to think about making your home here with me. Have you come to any conclusions?”

Sophia pulled back in his arms so she could look in his eyes. “I have, yes. I’ve decided home is wherever you are.”

“Thank you,” he said simply. “I’ve waited a lot of years for you to become a MacKenzie.”

“It’s a good name, and I’ve waited a long time to share it with you. Let’s go home.”

He took her hand and winked at his mother on the way out the door. “It’s about damned time, Declan MacKenzie,” she called out after them. “Now go get some sleep, the both of you. We’re all going to need our strength in the upcoming weeks. And a lot of prayers,” she whispered, taking her husband’s hand. She knew the battle was still ahead of them with Shane, but at least she no longer had to worry about Declan. He’d finally found his happiness, and as a mother, she couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

“Let’s go home, love,” Jim said, pulling her toward the exit. “It’s time to practice what you preach.”

“What are we going to do? I don’t even know where to begin to help him ease the pain.”

“Sometimes you can’t ease the pain, love. But we’re going to help him by loving him and kicking him in the ass when he needs it. It’s what we’ve always done. MacKenzies aren’t quitters, and Shane is no different.”

They leaned into each other as they left the hospital—a lifetime of love and laughter, children and grandchildren shared between them—knowing the hardest road was the one just in front of them.