“That’s why I’m going to need your help making sure she behaves, okay?”
“Okay.”
Eve smiles at us. “If I’m leaving, I should go.”
“Go,” I tell her, drawing my niece under my arm. “We’re good.”
“I’m calling you later.”
I nod. “Thank you for being here. I love you, girl.”
“Love you, too. And you,” she tells Katie. With a wave, she turns away from us and glides out of sight as elegantly as if she’s on a fashion runway.
When it’s just the two of us, I glance down at my niece and the dog-eared kids’ magazine clutched in her hand. “Are you reading something good?”
“Uh, huh. It’s all about elephants in Africa. There are games and stuff in it, too.”
“That does sound good.” I smile at her sweet face that looks so much like my sister’s. “Will you read some of it to me?”
“Sure.”
We head back into the mostly empty waiting room. Traffic in the coronary unit has ebbed and flowed since we arrived yesterday afternoon. The brown vinyl recliner I sat in while Katie slept in my arms last night is vacant, so we reclaim it. For several minutes I allow myself to unwind to the sound of my niece reciting facts about elephant social structures and efforts to conserve endangered species around the world.
I don’t even realize I’m dozing until I startle awake and find my lap empty.
“Katie?” I vault out of the chair and step into the wide corridor outside the waiting room.
She’s nowhere in sight. The halls are busy with nurses moving patients and people drifting out of one room or another along the passageway. But no sign of my niece. I start walking fast, panic rising in my breast.
“Katie?”
I round the corner toward another stretch of hallway practically at a skid. All my breath leaves my lungs in a relieved gust when I see her standing in front of a vending machine. Her small hand is splayed against the Plexiglas, her pale blond head tipped up as she looks longingly at all the beverages inside.
“Katie, what are you doing out here? I thought I told you not to wander off while we were at the hospital. I want you to stay where I can see you, remember?”
She glances at me, her sweet face contrite. “I know. But you were sleeping and I got thirsty.”
“It takes money to use this machine, honey. Come on, I’ll get you a drink from the water cooler near the nurse’s station.”
“But I want juice,” she says, disappointment and fatigue in the puppy dog look she gives me.
She’s tired and bored, which is understandable considering how long we’ve been keeping vigil outside my mom’s unit. She’s probably hungry again, too. We had breakfast in the cafeteria downstairs, but Katie barely picked at her toast and eggs.
I should see about getting her an early lunch.
What I really should have done was take Eve up on her offer to bring us home. Katie needs the rest and a proper meal. God knows I could use a little of both as well.
“All right,” I relent, digging into my purse for a couple of dollars to feed the machine. “You can have juice. Which one do you want?”
“Apple.” Then she shakes her head and points to another one. “No, grape. I want grape.”
A deep voice sounds from behind me while I’m still foraging for my wallet. “How about one of each? My treat.”
I swivel my head at the dark whiskey growl I’d now recognize anywhere. It doesn’t lessen my surprise to hear Jared Rush’s voice, or to see him standing in the hospital corridor with me.
“What are you doing here?” I’m sure my frown isn’t any more welcoming than my tone, but I can’t help it.
“Can I have both, Aunt Melanie?” Katie asks, oblivious to the change in the air that always seems to occur whenever Jared’s nearby.
I wish I could be oblivious to it, too. Awareness of him arcs through me like an electrical current, hot and bright and intense. He looks good, dressed in jeans and boots, the sleeves of his white button-down shirt rolled up over his tanned, muscular forearms. His thick man of sandy-brown hair breaks in waves on his broad shoulders, wild and untamed, like the rugged handsomeness of the man himself. And he smells ridiculously good, spicy and warm, a comfort to my senses that I want to refuse but can’t.
I break away from his smoldering stare to hand my money to Katie. “Choose one or the other, honey. I don’t have enough for both.” I glare back at Jared. “And we don’t need anyone’s charity.”
“How about an apology?”
The only thing that could shock me more than his unexpected appearance here are those words falling off his tongue in a low tone that actually seems sincere. He seems a bit taken aback by them, too. Something flickers in his warm molasses eyes, something I’m tempted to call regret.
I lift my chin, refusing to give in to anything about this dangerous, volatile—obviously troubled—man. “I don’t need your apology, either.”
After Katie’s bottle of grape juice clunks into the tray and she fetches it out, I steer her away from Jared, prepared to leave him standing right where he is.
“I heard about your mom, Melanie. How’s she doing?”
I freeze, wheeling around to face him. “What do you mean you heard about her? How? Did Eve—”
He shakes his head. “Not Eve. I ran into Gabe this morning while I was at the Baine Building meeting with Nick. He was on his way to pick her up at the hospital.”
“And he told you she was here with me?”
“He didn’t want to tell me anything, so don’t be upset with him. When I heard what happened to your mom, I pressed him to tell me where I could find you.”
“Why?” The question blurts out of me like an accusation. “What do you care? Oh, wait. Let me guess. You’re here because I didn’t show up for our session today?”
Katie looks up at me as my temper swiftly
