35. Mercy

"Something's wrong with him,"Patrick insisted, practically pulling me through the halls of OPS.

We'd only been here a month and I was constantly lost. It wasn't often I came into the main building. I'd started my new job at the hospital just over two weeks ago, and I spent most days running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Apparently, there was a doctor shortage in the area, which was fantastic for me because it was easy to get a job. It also meant a lot of hours.

Hours which I could have spent with Chase. And then I would have realized sooner something was wrong.

"What is it?" I asked, panic ripping through me.

"He's acting funny," Patrick snapped.

It was so unlike Patrick to be upset about anything. Even when we were in the hospital, waiting on pins and needles for Chase to wake up, he was joking around as if Chase had simply had a blood draw.

And the fact that he was genuinely worried had my mind racing through extensive possibilities of what could be wrong. It could be a reoccurrence. Even though his tumor was benign, what if it began to regrow? And what if it was pressing against another part of his brain, further impeding his recovery?

The month we'd been back had already greatly increased Chase's ability to function on his own. I was so proud of him. He was exhausted every night, but improving so much. A setback like this could ruin everything he'd worked so hard for.

Anxiety set off a swarm of butterflies in my stomach as we rode the elevator down. If Patrick had called me and asked me to make the trip on my own, I wouldn't have been able to remember all the necessary protocols for entering the building on my own. I had been entered into the system and could get through the eye scanner, the hand print scanner, and even had my own code. But what good was any of that if I couldn't remember how to do it on my own?

I bent over, sucking in a deep breath as a panic attack took over. My heart was racing out of control, and for the first time in a long time, I worried that I might actually kill my heart. I pressed my fingers to my neck, taking my pulse as I fought off the dark spots filling my vision.

"Are you okay?" Patrick asked, placing his hand on my back.

I tried to nod, but was finding it too difficult to draw in a breath. "I just—" I sucked in another breath as Patrick lowered me to the floor and pushed my head between my legs.

"Shit, Mercy, tell me what to do." His panic rivaled mine at the moment.

Through blurry eyes, I could see the terror on his face, and funnily, that calmed me a little. I knew he was talking to me, telling me to take deep breaths. He kept turning behind him and slamming a button and I focused on that, counting each time his hand hit the red circle.

One, two, three…

On and on it went until the doors slid open and Cash rushed inside, bending down beside me. "Mercy, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong?"

I closed my eyes and sucked in a ragged breath, finally feeling my body calm. Cash's worried eyes took in every inch of me, and when he saw I was starting to breathe normal again, he called off whatever was about to happen in what appeared to be an earpiece, following a coiled wire down to an electronic device attached at his hip. I took in every detail of it, listing all the coils in my head until the anxiety receded to a manageable level.

"Okay?" Cash asked.

I nodded, holding out my hand. I was still shaky and needed some help getting moving again.

"What was that?"

"She was having a heart attack, boss," Patrick snapped. "I fucking told you we shouldn't do this!"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea," he argued.

"Boys!" I shouted, finally feeling a little more like myself. "Perhaps we can save the argument for a later time. For now, I'd like to know why Chase isn't acting like himself!"

They both looked at each other, a strange look passing between them. "Let's go," Cash barked, turning on his heel and exiting the elevator.

I followed, gratefully allowing Patrick to hold my elbow as we walked. Even though I was feeling better, my heart was still racing in anticipation for what I was about to face. Not to mention, I felt like a newborn giraffe walking for the first time.

"It would help if I knew what I was dealing with," I said as calmly as possible.

"There's no good way to describe it," Cash said hesitantly.

"Just tell me," I snapped. "Are the hallucinations back? What is it?"

"It's—"

"Patrick!" Cash cut him off.

With a final glare at Patrick, Cash pushed the doors open to the training center. Stepping inside, I looked around at the massive amount of flowers scattered decoratively around the floors and on small stands. It was like a flower show on steroids. And standing in the middle of all of it was the man I was going to kill.

Marching over to him, I snarled at his smiling face and struck out before even thinking, slapping him across the face. His head twisted with the hit, his face contorted in shock. "This is what you had me in a panic for? You wanted to woo me?"

He slowly turned back to me, rubbing his hand over his reddened cheek. "I'll be honest, that was not the reaction I was expecting."

"Yeah? And what were you expecting? Patrick told me something was wrong with you! And he was serious!" I shouted. "Patrick is never serious, but he was when he dragged me through the hallways. He was fucking serious when I got in that elevator! Which could only mean one thing. Do you know what that would be?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but I rushed on in anger.

"It would be that something was seriously wrong with you. Because only an idiot would drag me down here under the pretense of there being something wrong—after you had a brain tumor, I might add. Are you an idiot?"

Again, he opened his mouth, but I cut him off again and continued to ramble.

"So, I would love to know why you spread flowers out all over the place!" I caught a table set behind him with candles and scoffed. "With dinner! Yes, you must really be acting strange to set up flowers and dinner with streamers and—" My rage stopped suddenly when I turned and saw a banner hanging from the doorway with scrolling script reading Will you marry me?

Mouth hanging open, my eyes drifted back to the table where I finally looked closer and spotted a ring box sitting open on one of the plates. Oh shit. This was…

"You—"

"Yeah," he winced.

"This was…"

"Pretty much."

"And I…"

"Stomped all over it," he chuckled.

Nodding, I turned back to him, trying to figure out a way to save face. "Well…it was an…unexpected surprise."

"That was kind of the point," he said, cocking his head at me with an arrogant look on his face.

That was the wrong thing to do because now I was really pissed. Not only had he done this beautiful, unexpected thing for me, but he had to nerve to act smug about the way I reacted. He was the one in the wrong.

"And I suppose you think I'll say yes out of some form of guilt," I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest.

"No, I think you'll say yes because you want to."

"Well," I hesitated, trying to come up with a clever comeback. "I'm not sure I want to marry a man who would use a fucking brain tumor to get me."

"I didn't need to use the brain tumor. Patrick was genuinely worried about me."

"Yeah? And why's that?"

He stepped into my space, sliding his hand around my waist and yanking me flush against him. "Because from the moment I met you, I haven't been myself. I've been fucking happy, and he doesn't know how to deal with that. And he definitely didn't expect me to litter the training center with flowers and get the best chef in town to come here and prepare a five-course meal for the woman I love all so I could woo her into saying yes when I got down on my knees and told her she was the best fucking piece of me. That I didn't know who I really was until the moment I met her. And even in my darkest hours, she was the one thing I was fighting for, to know that when I came out of that surgery, I would be the man she needed and would want to stay beside her forever. And not because of a brain tumor, but because I was strong enough to protect her for the rest of our lives and cherish her the only way a man could with such a fierce woman like yourself." He bent down and pressed a sweet kiss to my lips, then smiled at me. "Or something like that."

I sucked in a ragged breath as I stared mesmerized into his hypnotizing eyes. Swallowing hard, I nodded. "Well…that seems like a logical, well-thought-out reason to stage such an…elaborate plan. I accept your line of thinking."

His lips quirked up at the side. "How magnanimous of you."

"I thought so."

"And the other thing?"

"Well, you haven't technically asked me anything. You only?—"

My words were abruptly cut off when he slammed his lips to mine and gave me a searing kiss I could feel all the way down to my toes. His large hands cupped the back of my head, pulling me into him, forcing me to yield to him in every way. When he pulled back, I stumbled in his arms, dizzy with love and girly feelings that had me giggling like I was in high school again.

"I'll take that as a yes."