by Kathi Daley
“Are you okay?” Jenna asked.
“Not even a tiny bit.”
“I know. I don’t even know why I asked. Kyle called me half a dozen times, giving me suggestions on how to best help you deal with the situation. I know he’s a good friend and wants to help, but some of the things he said were ridiculous. You and I both know there’s nothing I can do or say to make you feel any better.”
I offered Jenna a sad half smile. Had it really been just yesterday afternoon that I had kissed Kyle for the first time? It seemed like a lifetime ago. “Kyle is a doer. An organizer. I’m sure it’s making him nuts that he can’t be here to handle things.”
“He does seem a bit frantic.”
I looked up and met Jenna’s eyes as the driver of the limo turned off the main highway that traversed the mountain and headed toward our small town of Serenity. “I kissed him. And not a brotherly peck on the lips.”
Jenna smiled. She’d been convinced for months that Kyle and I were meant for each other. “How was it?”
“Wonderful and terrifying and confusing.”
Jenna tilted her head but didn’t reply. I knew she was waiting for additional details, but the limo had pulled onto the street where the hospital was located.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I said as we stopped outside the front entrance.
Jenna took my hand in hers as we entered through the double doors. “Your dad is in intensive care. We’ll need a doctor’s approval to see him since access to the third floor, where the ICU is located, is limited to hospital staff and cleared visitors. Hunter said to call him when we arrived.”
I stood staring at nothing in particular while Jenna made the call. My heart pounded with fear as I waited for the hospital escort who would accompany us to the third floor. I had been trying desperately not to let my imagination get the better of me, intentionally blocking the images of my father clinging to life that had been threatening to destroy my last shred of sanity ever since the moment Kyle had received Hunter’s frantic call.
When Hunter personally showed up to escort us upstairs my mind couldn’t help but leap to the worst possible conclusion.
“Is he…?” My throat closed with emotion before I could finish the sentence.
Hunter opened his arms and I walked into them. I willed my heartbeat to slow as he hugged me tightly and assured me that my father was very much alive.
“Can I see him?”
Hunter looked uncertain.
“Please. I need to see him with my own eyes.”
Hunter took a step back and looked at me seriously. “Okay. But be warned: he’s pretty beat up. It’s going to be difficult to see him that way. Are you sure you’re ready for it?”
I nodded as tears streamed down my face.
Hunter glanced at Jenna. “Maybe you should come with us.”
Jenna took my hand in hers in silent agreement. Hunter grabbed my other hand and led me toward the elevator that would take us to the third floor. I felt a momentary wave of nausea and dizziness as the elevator doors closed behind us. Both Hunter and Jenna tightened their grip on my hands as I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
I’m not sure how to describe what went through my mind when I walked into my father’s room to find monitors of all types beeping and chiming all around him. He was covered by a sheet, so with the exception of one eye, which was swollen shut, and the bandage around his head, most of his injuries were hidden. My first thought was that he was just sleeping, but as I let the reality of the situation sink in I found my legs beginning to give out beneath me.
Oh god.
For the first time it hit me that the man I counted on to be there for me more than anyone in my life might actually die.
I couldn’t breathe.
Hunter pulled my body toward his and put an arm around my shoulder in support. “Are you okay?”
I took several deep breaths as the room began to spin.
“Tj?” Hunter asked again.
He put a finger under my chin when I still didn’t answer and turned my head ever so gently so I was looking at him. “Maybe you should take a break and come back later.”
I shook my head. “No. I want to stay.”
Hunter hesitated.
“Please. I need to stay.”
“Okay, but only for a minute. You look exhausted. I may not be your doctor, but as a doctor, I’m prescribing at least twelve hours of sleep.”
“Okay.” I walked over to a chair that was positioned next to the bed. I sat down and took several deep breaths. It was terrifying to see my big, strong father looking so small and helpless. I gently took his hand in mine and willed him to open his eyes, to assure me that things were going to be okay.
“It looks like you really got yourself into a pickle this time.” I tried for a light tone of voice I was far from feeling. “I know it seems pretty bad, but Hunter is here, and he’s assured me you’ll be getting VIP treatment during your stay.”
I glanced at Hunter, who was watching me but not commenting. Jenna was standing next to him with tears streaming down her cheeks. I searched their faces for a sign of encouragement, but all I saw was sympathy.
I bit down hard on my lip to keep from breaking down completely. I turned back to my father and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. I needed to be strong for him the way he’d always been strong for me. “Hunter says you need your beauty sleep, and now that I’ve had a look at that eye I can see what he means.” I reached out my hand and smoothed my dad’s hair away from his eyes. It had gotten longer since I’d been away. “If I’m perfectly honest, I could use some beauty sleep as well. I’m going to go home for a while, but I’ll be back. It would be really great if you were awake when I returned.”
I closed my eyes and prayed. Please, God, let him live.
I stood up, leaned over, and kissed my dad on the forehead. Jenna took a step toward me. She wrapped me in her arms as I sobbed. When I had no tears left to expend, Hunter led Jenna and me to his office.
“Okay, tell me everything.” I dug down deep for the strength and courage I knew I’d need to get through this.
“Your dad’s injuries are extensive, but other than the head injury, none are life-threatening. He has a couple of broken ribs, a broken leg, multiple cuts and abrasions, and of course the swollen eye. All of this will heal in time. It’s the head injury that’s causing some concern.”
I balled my hands into fists as I forced myself to ask the next question. “What are his chances of waking up and experiencing a full recovery?”
“Better than they were twenty-four hours ago.”
“Okay. That’s good, but it doesn’t really answer my question.” I forced myself to look Hunter in the eye. “I need a number. A percentage.”
His face was soft with sympathy. “As of this moment, fifty-fifty.”
It felt as if a lead ball had been dropped onto my chest. My heart raced as I struggled to find my breath. “Fifty-fifty?”
Hunter crossed the room. He knelt in front of the chair I was sitting in and took my hands in his. “I promise you I’ll stay here until he’s out of danger. I’ll do everything in my power to return the father you know and love to you.”
“Could he—” I choked. I took a deep breath, then continued. “Could he have brain damage?”
“It’s a possibility. We won’t know until the swelling in his brain decreases.”
I glanced at Jenna, who was sitting in the chair next to me. I could see she was struggling to be strong for me, although based on the tears on her face, she was losing the battle just as I was.
“Go home,” Hunter encouraged. “Get some sleep. If anything changes I’ll call you. I promise.”
“Rosalie?” Rosalie was my dad’s fiancée. I was surprised she wasn’t there.
“I sent her back to the resort to get some r
est. She was hesitant to leave, but she said she was needed at the resort in your father’s absence.”
I realized the Fourth of July crowd would be arriving over the next day or two. Fourth of July week was the busiest one of the year at Maggie’s Hideaway, the lakeside resort my father owned and operated. We had an excellent staff, but Rosalie would need help. Being needed, having something to do, somehow gave me strength.
“Okay. I’ll go to the resort. But you’ll call me the minute something changes?”
“I promise.”
I looked at Jenna, who had managed to get her own emotions under control. “Is your car here?”
“Yeah. It’s in the parking garage.”
Jenna took my hand and led me out of the building. It was a beautiful sunny day, which seemed incongruent with the darkness in my heart. Fifty percent! Dad had a fifty percent chance of having a full recovery. What that actually meant, I realized, was that he had a fifty percent chance of not recovering.
I began to shiver as Jenna led me into the parking garage. It was covered, which provided shade against the heat of the sun, but it was a warm day, so the garage definitely shouldn’t have been chilly. In spite of the fact that it had to be at least seventy degrees, I found I could not control the goosebumps that covered my arms.
“Are you cold?” Jenna asked, concern evident on her face.
“A little.”
“I have a sweater in the car,” Jenna offered as she pressed the button on the elevator that would take us to the second level of the garage.
I didn’t respond.
“Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
I did feel dizzy. I supposed it was the shock setting in. I knew the last thing I had time for was a breakdown, so I took a deep breath, smiled at Jenna, and assured her I’d be fine. I focused on the pavement ahead of me as we made our way toward the second row where Jenna had left her car.
I checked my phone, which I’d turned off while I was in the hospital, as soon as I buckled myself into the front passenger seat of Jenna’s car. There was a missed call from Kyle. I hit the Return Call button and waited while it rang.
“Hey,” he answered at last.
“Hey yourself.”
“Did you make it home okay?”
“I’m in Serenity. At the hospital. Jenna is driving me home.”
“And your dad?”
I glanced out the window at the passing scenery as Jenna pulled out of the garage and onto the highway. I put my fingers to my lips and pressed hard as if to hold back the cry of anguish demanding to be heard. “Alive,” I whispered, as my voice broke with emotion.
Kyle responded in a tone that sounded forced, but I knew he meant to be supportive. “I spoke to Hunter earlier. He seemed to think your dad had a real chance at a full recovery.”
“I hope so.” I felt my throat close and the dizziness I’d felt before begin to return. “I don’t know what I’ll do if he dies.”
“He won’t. He’s strong. He’ll get through this.”
I wanted so badly to believe Kyle. He was a strong man who fought for what was important to him and, in the time I’d known him, had almost always won. Having Kyle and Hunter fighting with me usually gave me the confidence to do whatever it was I needed to do, but right now, in this moment, I felt so alone.
“Listen,” Kyle added, “I managed to get your grandpa and the girls on a flight home tomorrow morning. I’ll send a car, so you don’t need to worry about picking them up at the airport.”
“Thank you.” Kyle, Grandpa Ben, his best friend, Doc, and my sisters, Ashley and Gracie, had gone to Gull Island off the South Carolina coast with me for the summer, and I’d yet to really consider what it would take to get everyone home two months ahead of schedule.
“Doc and I are going to pack everything up and ship what we can home. Garrett’s sister is going to come early to take over the renovations at the resort.” Kyle referred to my father’s friend, Garrett Hanford, who we’d gone to Gull Island to help after he’d had a stroke. “Once she arrives, Doc and I plan to hire a private jet if we can find someone willing to fly us home along with all the animals.”
“And the cars?”
“Doc and I decided it would make the most sense to leave them here for Garrett’s sister to sell. I have another car back home just sitting in the garage gathering dust and your car is on its last leg anyway. I’ll buy you something new when I get there.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can buy my own car.”
Kyle hesitated before answering. “Whatever you want to do. We can talk about it when I get home.”
He sounded hurt, which made me feel bad. I’d snapped at him and all he was trying to do was help. It was just that having him taking care of me made me feel more helpless than I already did.
“We’re almost at the resort,” I told him. “I should hang up. I’ll call you later.”
“Okay.”
“Tell the girls I love them. Tell them everything is going to be okay.”
“I will. I’ll talk to you later.”
I waited for Kyle to hang up, but I could hear his breath, so I knew he hadn’t. I wanted to tell him I loved him and missed him and appreciated everything he was doing to make this easier on me, but in the end, I simply hung up. The conversation reminded me that my feelings for Kyle were complicated, raw and uncertain. I knew I cared for him, but complicated, raw, and uncertain were feelings I couldn’t deal with just then.
Chapter 2
Rosalie was standing on the front lawn talking to Noah Sawyer, the new operations manager my dad had hired after I’d decided to head to the East Coast for the summer. I had only met him once, but he’d seemed like a nice competent guy. He’d worked at several large resorts around the world before taking the job at Maggie’s Hideaway.
Rosalie ended her conversation as soon as Jenna’s car pulled into view. She headed toward the circular drive to meet us. Rosalie was the local veterinarian and I’d always gotten along with her, although things had become somewhat awkward after my dad had proposed and she’d moved in with him, making me feel like a third wheel in my own home.
Jenna came to a full stop. I opened the passenger door and stepped into Rosalie’s arms. We held each other for a full thirty seconds before I finally took a step back.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Hanging in. Have you seen him?”
“We just came from the hospital.”
Rosalie took my arm and turned toward the house. “You poor thing. You must be exhausted. Let’s go in and I’ll make you something to eat.”
“I’m not really hungry.”
“I know. My appetite has been nonexistent since the accident, but you need to eat. Maybe just a sandwich?”
I’d meant it when I said I didn’t feel like eating, but I could see it was important to Rosalie, so I allowed her to lead me into the kitchen while Jenna followed behind us. In the kitchen, Jenna and I took seats at the counter while Rosalie began assembling sandwiches.
“What exactly happened?” I asked.
Rosalie sat down on a stool across the counter from Jenna and me. “Your father had been to a town council meeting. His car wouldn’t start, so Judge Harper volunteered to give him a ride home. The plan was for Mike to leave his car where it was and deal with it in the morning. Mike called to tell me what was going on so I wouldn’t worry when he was late. That was the last time I spoke to him.”
Judge Harper was a retired judge and currently the acting mayor of Serenity. He’d lived in Serenity since before I was born and was a close friend of the family. My Grandma Maggie was friends with his wife, Veronica, and the couple came to the resort for dinner on a regular basis. Once Maggie passed, the Harpers didn’t come around as often, but I knew both my father and my grandfather considered Judge Harper family.
“Do you kno
w how the accident occurred?”
Rosalie glanced at Jenna, who turned and looked directly at me. “Judge Harper’s car was tampered with,” Jenna said.
“Tampered with?”
“According to Roy Fisher,” Jenna said, mentioning the deputy assigned to Serenity, “the brake line had been cut. There was a slow leak. The brakes failed as they made their way along the lake road on the way home.”
“There’s that one steep hill,” Rosalie added. “They went over the embankment.”
“Wait!” I stood up. “Are you saying it wasn’t an accident at all? Judge Harper was murdered?”
“Yes, that’s what Roy thinks,” Jenna answered.
If I had been numb before, I was darn near paralyzed now. It was one thing when I thought a man I liked and respected had died in a horrible accident, but murder? I wasn’t sure how to process this new information, so I simply sat back down on the stool.
“Roy believes Judge Harper was the intended victim and your father was simply an innocent bystander,” Jenna continued.
“Does he have any suspects?”
“As of the last time I spoke to him, there were a bunch of people he was looking at, but none of them really stood out.”
“I need to call him.”
“Hunter said you should rest,” Jenna reminded me.
“I can rest later. If the person who killed Judge Harper and almost killed my father is walking around free, I intend to hunt them down and make them pay for what they’ve done.” I picked up the sandwich Rosalie had made for me and took one bite. “Thank you for the lunch. I’ll be in my room.” I turned and looked at Jenna. “And thank you for everything. I’ll call you later. Right now, there’s a deputy sheriff I need to talk to.”
Once I arrived in my bedroom, where I knew I’d have some privacy, I called Roy, but he was tied up. The receptionist promised to have him call me as soon as he was free. I decided to lay down on my bed for just a minute to rest my eyes while I waited. The next thing I knew, it was dark, and my phone, which had been in my hand when I laid down, was on the table next to the bed. When I realized it was turned off, I wanted to be mad at Rosalie for interfering in something that was clearly none of her business. But then I remembered the tender way she looked at my father when they’d announced their engagement and realized it would be best if I started keeping in mind that she was suffering as much as I was.