Faith (Rescue Me, A Contemporary Romance) by Elizabeth Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

hand where it lay unmoving on the stair just below the edge of the hallway where she stood.
    With a cry she dropped to her hands and knees, screaming for Bill to call an ambulance. She saw the light come on in the stairway, Bill must have hit the switch, and suddenly her husband’s inert form was bathed with yellow light.
    He lay crumbled on the stairs like a fallen giant. His head lay on his outstretched arm as if he had been crawling back up the stairs, trying to reach her and Liam, when he’d passed out. She reached toward him and grasped his arms and shoulders to pull him toward her. Bill put a hand on her shoulder.
    “Stop it Faith, don’t move him. The paramedics are on their way.” He told her roughly, ripping her hands away from his wrist.
    “God dammit Bill, help me!” she screamed vainly, but he was right. He shouldn’t be moved, she might hurt him worse .
    Instead of bringing his broken body to her, she went to him. Crawling carefully around him she laid her hands and head on his back and shoulders and whispered to him.
    “Don’t leave me baby, don’t leave me, don’t leave me…” she repeated it over and over again like a mantra.
    If she stopped saying it he would slip away. She knew it was illogical, but it felt that way. She didn’t know the extent of his injuries, but she was certain that Mac would only stop protecting her if he was completely gone. Only death would be able to stop him. Now it was up to her to stop death. If such a thing was possible.

CHAPTER 7
     
    From the hall behind her she could hear footsteps running; the sound of labored breathing, a shocked in and out of breath that she recognized as her child’s. It was Liam.
    Before she could think to stop him he was on her. Staring down at the sight of his father’s motionless body and his mother draped across him, in a manner that said only one thing: death.
    Looking up at him she didn’t know if she could care. She didn’t want her son to see Mac like this or her so vulnerable. She knew it would hurt him. Scar him, but she couldn’t leave Mac. Couldn’t bring herself to walk away from him and protect her son. It seemed in this instant that if a choice had to be made she was making it in favor of the love of her life and she would deal with the consequences of that later. It was a choice that would change her life. She knew it as she made it, but in the way of desperate choices she didn’t care. Couldn’t make a different one.
    She locked eyes with Liam. In that moment she saw in his eyes that he knew what choice she had made and she saw it cut him, deep into his soul. Helplessly she called for Bill to help once again. Needed him to take Liam away, too late now, but still she couldn’t handle the accusing stare in her son’s eyes as she leaned over her husband. She needed to be alone with Mac right now.
    Bill came at a run from his post outside the open front door where he waited to flag down the emergency crew when they arrived. He gently took Liam’s shoulders and turned him away from the tableau. She could feel tears running down her face. She didn’t even know when she’d started crying. Slowly they fell onto Mac’s cheek and hair. Even when the paramedics and police came rushing in in a huge confused crowd of yelling orders and barking questions she couldn’t move.
    “Ma’am, we can take it from here. We’re here to help ma’am.” Nameless, faceless rescue workers lifted her off of Mac and passed her from arm to arm to replace her at his side with a stretcher and IV’s.
    She watched helplessly from the edges of the crowd, her body held tightly by some neighbor, she didn’t even know who. She couldn’t turn her head to look for her son. Couldn’t spare a thought to the fate of the child she carried inside her. All her attention was focused on Mac and the medical personnel buzzing around him.
    A team of concerned looking young men and women loaded Mac onto a stretcher and secured his head and body onto the