Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Walsh ignored the burn of tears in his nostrils, gulping back a useless moan. He laid his forehead against the steering wheel, rolling his head back and forth.
“Walsh, you can’t go in there.”
He raised his head, loading the glare he leveled at Meredith with every bit of frustration and anger he felt before pulling the trigger.
“The hell I can’t.”
“Right now, no one can see her.” Meredith laid a staying hand on his arm. “And until anyone can see her, I just think you being in the waiting room will only agitate Cam.”
Cam deserved every drop of guilt he was probably choking on right now. Walsh wasn’t worried about him.
“Look, my family practically built this hospital,” Walsh said. “I’ll find somewhere to hang out. Just call me as soon as she’s out of surgery.”
Walsh pulled out his cell phone, watching Meredith slip back through the hospital entrance. Good, he still had Dr. Ravenscroft’s number. Not even considering the lateness—or earliness—of the hour, he dialed it.
“Dr. Ravenscroft here.” His mother’s old physician sounded as alert as he always did.
“Dr. Ravenscroft, it’s Walsh Bennett. Sorry to call so early, but I need a huge favor.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Walsh walked into what would soon be the Kristeene Walsh Bennett Cancer Wing, carefully picking his way around a few piles of unfinished lumber. It was still under construction, but Dr. Ravenscroft had assured Walsh that at least one office, his own, was close enough to completion for him to crash there for a while. He followed the doctor’s instructions, taking the needed turns that brought him to an office that was, even though not quite finished, obviously going to be luxuriously appointed. Well, a hospital’s version of luxuriously appointed. Dr. Ravenscroft would have some real office envy if he ever got a load of Martin Bennett’s Persian rug.
It occurred to him that he had fled New York in the midst of crucial negotiations with Sheikh Kassim.
“I’ll have to call Dad,” he said to the empty room.
Someone else could step in for a few…days? Weeks? He wasn’t sure how long Kerris would be unconscious, but he wasn’t leaving until she wasn’t. He’d call Trisha, too. He quirked his lips in a wry smile, remembering Trisha pounding on his door in the middle of the night. He had barely ever spoken about Kerris at all, much less let on how completely his best friend’s wife owned him. How had Trisha known?
He flopped down on the leather couch, one of the few pieces of furniture already in the room, and leaned back, feeling the flight and the sleepless night catching up to his body. Sleep wasn’t even a possibility, but at least he could close his eyes and rest. Only there was no rest. He had never felt so unsettled. Paradoxically, he felt compelled to move at the same time he longed for an anchor to hold him still and secure. He stood to his feet and headed toward the chapel. It was worth a try.
He sank into the front pew in the empty chapel and shook his head, silently deriding himself. Who was he fooling? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a church. He did believe in God, but that was about it. He didn’t know that it would do him any good right now. He struggled to recall a prayer, a catechism, a hymn—any tradition that was supposed to make him feel a connection of some kind.
He had nothing.
His mind, his heart, his soul, his spirit were all consumed with fear and a wretched helplessness he couldn’t stand. This wasn’t something he could conquer or subdue or manipulate or charm. Kerris’s life was out of his hands, hanging in the balance, and there was nothing he could do about it. He leaned forward, turning his head so his temple rested against the pew.
It was too much.
He drew several shallow breaths, rehearsing all the hurts he’d endured, situations that had been out of his control and had all ended tragically, leaving him stumbling and grappling. His parents’ divorce. Iyani’s lost battle. His mother’s death, which had left him empty of everything that had held him together.
And Kerris. Losing her hadn’t been a physical death, but it was a gradual, ongoing demise of hope. Hope that someone would see him and know him—dark and light, good and bad, and still love him deeply. Nothing would ever convince him that Kerris was not that one. He’d held the cards in his hand and had misplayed them.
All these hurts had been like small tears, tiny rips in the fabric of his soul that had stretched into a gaping hole. Left unattended and unrepaired, they now threatened to swallow him entirely. If Kerris died, he couldn’t help but think it would leave him slashed open, permanently, irreparably torn. Like his father when his mother died. Assured and confident and certain on the outside, but beneath—adrift, lost, his certainty the hardened crust around a center turned to mush from irretrievable loss.