Wounded Hearts

Chapter Seventeen

Ronan looked at the clock ticking on the wall. That clock told him that he had been lying in this bed beside Laura for fourteen hours, though it felt like days that he had been here begging her to wake up.

Ronan was vaguely aware of people coming into and out of the room. Nurses checking vitals, and doctors. Bruce, Helen and even Abigail had been in from time to time but Ronan had no time to talk to any of them. He was too busy willing his Laura to come back to him.

He did not know what he would do if she didn't wake up. Even the thought of Penelope wasn't enough for him to pull himself up out of Laura's bed. How could he explain to anyone how much this woman meant to him. Before her he had been like a ship lost and floating aimlessly at sea. The waves crashing around him and throwing him closer to the jagged rocks with every swell. Then there had been a light on the horizon. A lighthouse shining on the coast beckoning him toward its safety. Laura was that lighthouse. She had saved him and now he was helpless to do anything except pray to save her… So praying is what he was doing with every single thought and every single breath that he had.

"Ronan." a voice interrupted his thoughts. He grunted hoping the speaker would take the hint and go away but they simply said his name more loudly. Ronan sat up and looked over to see Lance standing inside the room.

"What?" Ronan asked his voice dry and cracked from being the last fourteen hours with nothing to drink.

"We're going to move Laura to a regular room. Her vitals are all holding steady so we don't see any reason to keep her up here any longer." Ronan nodded and stood up.

"When is she going to wake up?" he asked for what felt like the thousandth time. Lance shook his head sadly.

"I don't know, Ronan. I can't say. She has brain activity so that is a positive sign. We're just waiting on her now." Ronan nodded and smoothed some of her blond hair that was lying across her shoulder.

"What room are you moving her too?" he asked.

"205."

"I'll go let everyone else know and I'll be in there waiting." Ronan bent down and pressed a gentle kiss to Laura's warm lips before walking out of the room.

"Come on, woman, you have got to wake up. I don't want to have to tell him that yet another woman he loves is never coming back to him." Lance told the unconscious woman. Then he moved aside and made room for the nurses to come in and do their jobs.

888

Laura looked around the field she was in and breathed deeply. The scent of wildflowers filled her nose and the sounds of birds chirping made her smile. The sun was bright on her face and the wind was blowing the long grasses around her gently, brushing them against her arms and her face where she was sitting on a flat boulder.

A gentle stream flowed beside her and the water cascaded over several small rocks. The sun reflected off of the droplets of water causing tiny rainbows.

She knew this had to be a dream but it was so beautiful that she didn't want to wake up. A doe and a fawn were standing less than ten feet away form her. They trusted her presence beside them so much that the fawn was suckling while the doe grazed.

She didn't want to wake up because she knew that reality would be cold and cruel. Ronan was gone. She had sent him away. She vaguely remembered getting in her car to go visit her mother and then someone had hit her… She could remember an instant of pain and then there had been nothing for a long while until she had appeared in this field. She had been here for a long time, though she had no way of knowing exactly how long since in this place time did not seem to matter.