Take Me Higher by Pamela Clare
Chapter 5
Megs woke with a start,glanced around, confused. She was at a hotel in the room that Joe had reserved for her. What time was it?
Disoriented from a deep sleep, she reached for her watch, only to find it still on her wrist. Seven PM already? Had she truly slept for five hours?
She scrambled out of bed, found her phone, saw that she’d gotten a message from the hospital. On a rush of adrenaline, she played it back.
“It’s Dr. Schwartz. I just wanted to let you know we have the results of the MRI. There’s no sign of clots or bleeding, and that’s what we want to see at this stage. Have them page me when you get back to the hospital. I have something encouraging I think you’d like to see.”
The doctor had probably gone home by now, so she didn’t need to rush over in her underwear and sports bra. If it was good news—and it certainly sounded like good news—it could wait until she’d taken a shower and had something to eat.
She ordered supper from room service and hit the shower while she waited for her meal to arrive. She couldn’t help but sigh, the hot water helping her to feel human again. She shampooed, conditioned, washed her face and body, glad she’d taken the nurse’s advice. The situation with Mitch still terrified her, but at least she was clean and able to think more clearly.
Thank you, Rain and Joe!
She’d just gotten dressed when her meal arrived—smoked salmon salad with French bread, fresh fruit, and green tea. She grabbed her laptop and took time to send a group email to the Team and to check in with Rain while she ate. Then she put a few things she might need into her daypack and walked back to the hospital.
She hadn’t trusted herself to drive on no sleep.
Back in the ICU, she found a new shift of nurses hard at work. Mitch lay just as he had when she’d left—still and silent, earbuds in his ears, recorder in playback mode beside him.
She approached the nurse’s station. “I’m Megs Hill, Mitch Ahearn’s partner. I got a message from Dr. Schwartz about the results of today’s MRI. I’d really like to talk with him. He said there was something he wanted to tell me.”
Jackie, the evening RN, nodded. “I think he’s gone home for the day, but I’ll check. He’s not usually here this late, as he has to be in the OR pretty early most days. If he’s not here, the neurosurgeon on call can talk with you.”
“Thanks.” Megs walked back to Mitch’s room, took his hand. “Hey, bud. I went to the hotel where Joe got me a room and slept for five hours. I didn’t even dream.”
Was Mitch dreaming? Did he have any perception of where he was? Did he have thoughts and images floating through his mind? Or was there only darkness?
A moment later, her phone buzzed.
Dr. Schwartz.
She answered. “Sorry I missed your call. I was asleep.”
“Good. I’m glad you got some rest.” He went over the MRI results, repeating what he’d said in the message. “The surgery accomplished what we hoped it would. The MRI showed no new bleeding and no clots. That’s good news.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Thank you.”
“I ordered a functional MRI, as well. That’s one way we have to check brain function. He definitely has brain function. No doubt.”
“Thank God.”
Dr. Schwartz went on. “As a bit of an experiment, I decided to run the scan a second time, this time while he listened to the recording you’d made. The images of his brain showed a marked increase in activity in response to the sound of your voice.”
Megs’ throat went tight. “Really?”
“I’ll show you the images on my rounds tomorrow. In the meantime, keep talking to him. I can’t say for sure what the impact of hearing your voice will have in the final outcome, but anything that stimulates his brain is a good thing.”
“I will. Thank you.” She ended the call, looked down at the face of the man she loved. He was trapped inside this unconscious state, but he was there. “You really do hear me. I’ll fight to get in, while you keep fighting to get out, okay?”
She sat down with the digital recorder and the journal and began skimming, looking for a new favorite memory.
She laughed. “This is when you knuckleheads asked me to be slow about clearing the tables so that you could breeze through the cafeteria and grab the leftovers off of people’s dirty plates. You almost got me fired. Why couldn’t you just get jobs?”
She turned the pages, came across an entry that made her pause. “That’s the day the rangers raided the camp. Do you remember?”
Mitch floatedin a deep and gaping darkness, unbearably alone. His mind empty of thoughts, he knew only dread—except when he heard her voice. Without a name to go along with it, he knew that voice. Somehow, the sound of it chased away the dread and kept him from sinking deeper.
Mitch was awakenedfrom a sound sleep by shouting.
“Rise and shine, boys! Come out with your hands up!”
What the hell?
Wearing only his boxer briefs, he crawled out of his sleeping bag and stuck his head outside his tent.
Rangers.
“Shit.”
Another raid.
They came looking for illegal drugs and draft dodgers. Though the war was more or less over and the government had no plans to send anyone else to Vietnam, men who’d illegally avoided the draft could still be arrested.
“Come on out!”
Mitch grabbed his jeans, thrust his legs inside them, grabbed his draft card out of his wallet, and crawled out of his tent, hands raised.
A few rangers lined the guys up at the picnic table to check their IDs, draft cards, and frisk them, while others searched their tents. Mitch glanced around and saw that all of the crew were there now except Gridwall, who’d run into the forest to hide, and…
Megs.
She’d never been through one of these and might be afraid. Her tent was set apart from theirs, so maybe the rangers would leave her alone. One thing was certain. If he ran over to her tent to warn her, he would drag her into this.
“We know you guys have marijuana.” The ranger in charge had a crew cut, his jaw square enough to cut glass, a nightstick in his hand. “Families come to Yosemite. They don’t need you damned hippies hanging out, half-dressed, playing the devil’s music, and doing drugs in sight of their children. Shame on you!”
The devil’s music?
Accardo glared at him. “We’re not hippies. We’re dirtbags.”
Some of the guys laughed, but the rangers didn’t find it funny.
“Tell that to the judge.” A ranger checked Accardo’s ID and his draft card. “You’re nineteen. Have you been called up?”
“No, sir.”
“Face the table and plant your feet wide apart.” The ranger frisked him, found nothing, then moved on to Cook, whose long ponytail he disliked. “Is this how you want the world to see you, with long hair like a girl?”
“Do girls have razor stubble?” Cook asked, baiting him.
The ranger ignored him and moved on to Yoder. “I recognize you.”
Yoder grinned. “I’ve got that kind of face.”
Mitch doubted they would have cause to arrest anyone today. After Yoder got busted with a joint last summer, the potheads in the group had started burying their stashes in old tin cans before they turned in each night just to be safe. Still, they went through this ritual every so often.
The ranger finished with Yoder and stepped in front of Mitch.
Mitch handed him both his draft card and driver’s license. “College deferments.”
“You think you’re smart?”
“Not particularly.”
“I guess not, given that you’re hanging with these jokers. Uncle Sam let you off the hook. Shouldn’t you pay him back by doing something meaningful with your life?”
What was Mitch supposed to say to that? “I love climbing.”
“Face the table.”
Mitch laced his fingers behind his head and did as he was asked, his gaze on Megs’ tent as the ranger patted him down. They hadn’t yet noticed her tent, so…
Jesus!
This pat-down had just gotten personal.
“What’s this in your jeans?” the ranger demanded.
“That’s my dick.”
The other dirtbags burst into laughter.
“That’s your penis. Okay. Sorry.”
Cook snorted. “Is that a foot-long in your pocket, Ahearn, or are you just happy to see the rangers?”
More laughter.
By the time the lead ranger had finished checking their IDs and frisking them, the other rangers were done tossing their tents. Sleeping bags, clothes, and packaged food lay scattered on the ground, but, as Mitch had expected, they’d found no drugs. They also hadn’t found Gridwall, who’d taken to climbing and living in national parks to avoid the San Diego draft board.
Then one of them pointed toward Megs’ tent. “Anyone search that one yet?”
A ranger walked over to her tent, jerked down the zipper. “We told you to come out… Oh. I’m sorry, miss. I thought you were one of them.”
Mitch turned to the ranger who’d just patted him down. “She’s not with us.”
The ranger in charge passed on that information. “They say she’s not with them.”
Megs crawled out of her tent wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her hair drawn back in a ponytail. “Is there a problem, sir?”
“I need to see your ID, miss.”
Megs handed it to him, along with some documents.
The ranger studied both. “Come with me, please, miss.”
Megs hesitated for a moment, her gaze seeking Mitch’s as she walked by, worry in her eyes.
Something in Mitch snapped. “Wait! What did she do? Are you arresting her?”
“Stay where you are!” the ranger barked back. “Stanley, search her tent just to be thorough.”
“What the—” Mitch took a step, about to follow her, but found himself restrained by a palm to the sternum.
“Hold on, Romeo. No one is going to mistreat her.”
Megs climbed into the front seat of the ranger’s vehicle, not the back. She and the ranger seemed to be having a conversation. It went on for ten or fifteen minutes before she climbed out, papers in hand.
“What was that about?” Accardo asked.
“No idea.”
The lead ranger gave them a speech about following park rules and the evils of illicit drugs. Then the rangers climbed into their vehicles and drove away, leaving them to clean up the mess.
“Hey, why did they want to talk to you?” Yoder asked Megs.
She shrugged as if she had no idea.
Mitch didn’t buy that. He fell in beside her, walked with her. “Are you okay?”
Her gaze met his, and she nodded, clearly relieved. “What were they doing here?”
“Looking for illegal drugs and draft dodgers.”
“What are those papers?” Cook called to her.
She waved them. “My parole papers.”
“You’re on parole?” Accardo was apparently stupid enough to believe what was obviously a lie. “What did you do?”
“I killed some guy because he hit on me.”
Mitch found himself biting back a grin.
Still, he couldn’t help but wonder. Why had the ranger wanted to speak with her privately? And what were those papers?
Megs stopped recordingand slipped the cafeteria receipt she’d been using as a bookmark between the pages, laughing to herself. “They all seemed afraid of me for a while after that. Not one of them ever tried to grab my butt.”
As for those papers, Mitch had eventually learned the truth.
It touched her in a way she couldn’t quite explain to read about Mitch’s protectiveness toward her. He’d been there for her almost from the day she’d met him, watching out for her and supporting her as a climber. He’d always been good at reading people, but she’d had no idea how well he’d read her.
“You were right. I was terrified that you all would learn my secret—or that the rangers would kick me out of the park. He just wanted to warn me about all of you. He told me you weren’t law-abiding young men and that you all would take advantage of me in ways I couldn’t yet understand. I guess he thought I didn’t know about sex.”
She’d still been a virgin, but she hadn’t been innocent. Her stepfather had stolen that from her. The bastard.
Megs let that thought go, slid her fingers between his, a smile on her face. “You know what else happened that day? I realized that you liked me, and that was the beginning of my crush on you. You were the first man to stand up for me.”
It sounded a little pathetic when she put it like that. A girl falls for the first adult man to treat her with respect and dignity. But when she’d never experienced such kindness from a man before, how could she help but be drawn to him?
“I didn’t know the ranger who’d frisked you had grabbed your meat.” She laughed. “I wondered why the guys spent the next week or so joking about the size of your dick. I guess I can’t really blame them. You were pissed—and probably a little embarrassed. I will admit that it did make me curious.”
She learned that Gridwall was a draft dodger that day when he’d come down from his bolt-hole among the boulders, pumped up on adrenaline and proud of himself for once against sticking it to the man. When he heard all that had happened, he’d started calling Megs “our little murderer,” which she much preferred to “the blonde.”
“I always wondered how Dean became friends with Gridwall—the good-hearted Vietnam vet and the drug-using draft dodger. You told me that they represented for each other the road not taken, and—”
A knock.
“Lab.” A young woman entered, a cart of phlebotomy gear with her.
Megs stood. “You’re here for a blood draw.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Megs understood now why they’d put in that subclavian line. Mitch’s veins would be a mess with all these blood draws and all the IV meds.
She took advantage of the moment to go to the restroom and get a cup of coffee. When she returned, she found the hospital chaplain sitting at his bedside, praying in silence. Then he looked up, and she saw his nametag.
The Rev. Kurt Calder.
Oh, my God.
Dean’s son.
He was grown up now and obviously some kind of pastor or priest. He was also the clear image of his father—same dark hair, same brown eyes, same mouth. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been a little boy, no more than five or six years old.
He saw her, stood, a smile on his face. “Hi, Megs. I hope you don’t mind my coming. When I heard what had happened, I had to come see you, even if you didn’t request me. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course. I’m so glad you stopped by. You’re tall, just like your father, and you look so much like him.”
“I hear that a lot.” Kurt stood, motioned toward the chair. “Please sit. I’ll get another chair.”
He returned a few minutes later with an extra chair and sat near the foot of Mitch’s bed. “I’m really sorry to see you again under these circumstances. I’ve wanted to get in touch with you and Mitch for my entire adult life to thank you for keeping my father’s memory alive. I wish I hadn’t waited until now.”
His words, so unexpected, made Megs’ throat go tight.
She waited until she was confident she could speak without her voice breaking. “Your father was a good man—and a good friend.”
Kurt seemed to take this in, then he met Megs’ gaze. “How is Mitch?”
“You don’t have to be a chaplain with me, Kurt. If you want to talk about your dad, that’s fine. I’ve been thinking about the old days a lot.”
Kurt was quiet for a moment, clearly a deep thinker like his father. “The hardest thing for me is that I barely remember him. He was away so often, and I was only six when he died.”
In those words, Megs sensed a lifetime of loss. She recognized it because she shared it. Dean had been one of her best friends.
She thought about it for a moment, tried to imagine what Mitch would say. “Mitch kept journals dating back to when he was in college. Your father is in there from our early climbing days in Yosemite. I’ve been recording journal entries and playing them back for him, trying to stimulate his brain. I’m certain he wouldn’t mind if I shared entries that include your father.”
Kurt cleared his throat. “That would mean a lot to me.”