Danielle Steel - Heartbeat

But Adam was quick to shake his head vehemently. “I'm just glad they're both okay. You should have seen her, Dad. She ran like a blue streak once the current started taking him away. I guess she was trying to get downstream before he did, so she could stop him, but I couldn't figure it out then. And it worked. But it was so awful.” He choked on the words as he said it. “They kept going under, and at first no one helped them. She just kept pushing him up, and the current right where they were, kept shoving her down again. And then she'd push him up again, and she'd go under. It was awful….” He buried his face in Bill's chest, and he held his son for a long time.

“Tommy should never have left her in the first place. What in hell was he doing?”

“I think he must have been looking at the rafts or something. And he fell in while he was watching.”

“We're going to have to talk about that when he wakes up.” Eventually, he went over to check on the sleeping child, but his color looked good and his breathing and temperature were normal. He looked fine and there was hardly a scratch on him. It was hard to believe that this was the same child who had been blue only a few hours before. Bill knew that as long as he lived, he would never forget it.

He made some phone calls after that, and got a large suite in a deluxe hotel, and he went back to check on Adrian and talk to her doctor. She was still asleep, and they wanted her to stay that way for a while. She still had some repairing to do, and they thought she might be able to leave the hospital the next day if there were no further problems. They wanted to be sure she didn't develop pneumonia, or have complications with the baby. But so far, things seemed to be improving.

He told them he'd be back in a little while, and he went to tell Adam that, too, and then he got a ride back to their campsite, and he stood trembling as he looked around, thinking that only that morning, life had seemed so carefree and so simple. And now suddenly two of the people he loved had almost lost their lives …three, if he counted the baby. He had a sense of reverence and gratitude, and he was relieved when everything was packed and he drove to the hotel. They had set aside a beautiful two-bedroom suite, and he had already decided to sleep on the couch. He wanted to keep an eye on her at night, and be sure that he heard her if she called him. He would have preferred sleeping in the same room, but he was afraid it might upset the children.

And as soon as he dropped off their things, he went back to the hospital, and was startled to discover that it was six o'clock and the boys were eating dinner.

“Where've you been?” Tommy asked. They had taken out the IV, and he looked like his old self, as Adam told him to stop eating his mashed potatoes with his fingers. The children's ward was almost empty. There was a broken leg, a broken arm, a minor car accident that had required some stitches and observation for a concussion, and Tommy, having survived his dousing in the river. And most of the other children were older, and they were talking among themselves during dinner.

“I went to get a hotel room for all of us,” Bill explained. “I checked on you all afternoon, but you were asleep all the time.” He leaned over and kissed him and as he did he realized he was hungry. He hadn't eaten anything since the breakfast Adrian had fixed early that morning.

“Is Adrian okay?” Tommy's face clouded up with worry, but Bill nodded quickly.

“She's going to be fine. She was worried about you. She took kind of a beating trying to rescue you. Which reminds me, young man, what were you doing out of the swimming hole without the others?” The boy's eyes got huge in his face and brimmed over with tears. He knew exactly what part he had played in it, and he was old enough to know that it was his fault that he and Adrian had almost drowned, and he felt deeply remorseful.

“I'm sorry, Daddy …honest …”

“I know you are, son.”

“Can I see her yet?”

“Maybe tomorrow. She's pooped. Hopefully they'll let her out and we can take her back to the hotel with us.”

“Can I go tonight?”

“We'll see.” He would have liked to spend the night with Adrian, but he didn't want to leave the boys alone in the hotel, and even in the hospital, Tommy would have expected his father to sleep with him. And they had already said that Adam couldn't spend the night since he wasn't a patient. So Bill had no choice but to take them to the hotel, and come back for Adrian in the morning.

But she didn't seem to mind when he went back to see her. She was so exhausted from the perils of the day that she had barely woken up to talk to him before she was asleep again, and the nurse suggested that he leave her.

“She won't even know that you've gone, and I'll explain it to her when she wakes up,” the nurse promised, “and if she wants to, she can always call you.” He left the number of the hotel, and the hotel room, and he went back to get the boys, and an hour later they were jumping on the beds, and watching TV, and Tommy wanted to order chocolate ice cream from room service. It was difficult to believe that he had almost not survived the morning.

Bill gave him a bath and put them both to bed, and then he stretched out in the room that was to be hers, feeling completely exhausted. He couldn't remember a day in his entire life that had been as traumatic. And all he could think of was the hideous vision of their two bodies with the rangers and the paramedics struggling over them …the sirens …the sounds …the looks on their faces. He knew he would have nightmares about it for years, and as he thought of her, he found himself missing Adrian, and wanting to hold her close. There was so much he wanted to say to her now, so much for them to find out, to do together, to discover …and then there was the baby. He didn't even know exactly how pregnant she was. All he knew was what the doctor had guessed, but he had no idea when it was to be born. It was remarkable how suddenly a whole new being had come into his life … a whole new prospect of happiness for the future. He had loved her before, but now he knew that he loved her doubly. And as he thought about it, lying on her bed, the phone rang.

“Hello?” His voice was hoarse from just lying there, thinking of the emotions of the day, but he smiled as soon as he heard her voice. It was Adrian, calling from the hospital. She had woken up, and wondered where he was, and she was missing him, just as he was missing her. A whole new bond had formed between them since that morning.

“Where are you?”

“Here in your bed,” he said, smiling, “wishing you were here with me.” Given the chastity of their relationship, it seemed a rather forward thing to say, but he suspected she wouldn't mind after everything they'd been through. He almost felt as though they were married and she had just told him they were having a baby.

“Can you hear any bears?” she teased, she still sounded croaky, but a lot stronger.

“No bears and no coyotes.” Given the price he had paid for the suite, with the view they had of the lake, there should only have been the sounds of minks and Rolls-Royces. “But it's lonely without you,” he told her.

“It's lonely here too.” She hated being in the hospital and she really missed him. “How are the boys?”

“Asleep, I hope. I put them to bed an hour ago. And if they aren't asleep, I don't want to know it.” He was almost as tired as she was. And then, with a tender smile, “How's the baby?”

“Okay, I guess.” It embarrassed her a little bit talking to him about it. It was all so new to her. For all these months, she had pointedly ignored it, and now it was suddenly the focus of their attention. “It's all so strange. I'm not used to it yet.”