Amy, ever efficient, answered on the second ring. “Kate? How’s your husband doing?”
Kate closed her eyes briefly and willed the girl to listen carefully. “I’m here at the ICU, and he’s not doing so well. He’s going to need a lot more help in order to get out of here.”
“What kind of help? Like more surgery?”
“I’m calling about that IV running on the Doberman.”
“Huh? We don’t have a Dobe here right now.”
“I need you to up the saline to 200 cc’s per hour, and start a sodium pentobarbital drip at 10 cc’s per hour.”
Amy fell dead silent for a moment, clearly processing the subtle message. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” she ventured cautiously.
“Exactly right.”
“You want me to call the cops?”
“Absolutely. STAT. Thanks, Amy. I hope to see you later.”
The intruder grabbed the phone from Kate’s hand and turned it off. “Satisfied? Now get me in there. They’ll bend the rules for you, and your husband will be real happy to hear what I have to say.”
“Of course.” She turned toward the door and upended her purse, sending the contents cascading to the floor. “Oops. Sorry.”
She dropped to her hands and knees and began laboriously corralling everything, sending lipsticks rolling even farther away, fumbling with the shower of papers.
“Get up,” the man growled. “Do that later.”
A gut feeling told her that there’d be no “later” for anyone in the ICU area if she didn’t think of something fast.
Her fingers closed around a safety syringe she’d absentmindedly dropped in her purse yesterday after using the needle on a splinter in her palm. Holding it beneath her, she unsheathed the needle and palmed the syringe to hide it. It wasn’t much, but jammed in the right place it could be a distraction.
She kept reaching for her things, one by one, putting them in her purse, until he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.
“Maybe I don’t need you at all. This won’t take long and then I’ll be outta here. Loose ends are bad business, and I don’t let that happen.”
Sweat trickled down her back and her heart hammered against her ribs as she looked into his leering face. “Hear that? That’s the elevator. People are coming. How many can you deal with?”
He licked his lips and glanced nervously toward the door. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I did. Go now, and there’s no proof you were even here. You’ve done nothing, so there could be no charges, no matter what I say. I’d just sound like some hysterical woman—and you’d be long gone.”
As if summoned by her desperate, silent plea, a distant door crashed open and at least two sets of footsteps thundered down the hall toward the ICU.
He grabbed her, encircling her chest with one viselike arm, and hauled her next to him, then jerked a handgun out of his pocket and held it at her waist, out of sight. “If this ain’t the cops, then we’re going to walk right out of here and pay your hubby a little visit. If it is, then you’re gonna be my ticket outta here.”
The footsteps out in the hallway were closer now, slowing down. Tentative.
“Please—” She took a shaky breath, hoping they could hear her. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“One wrong move and you’re first,” he hissed, jamming the muzzle of the gun into her ribs. “Your choice.”
“Dr. Mathers?” The voice sounded like one of the younger deputies. “Are you having any trouble in there?”
“N-no.”
He appeared at the edge of the door and looked at Kate and the man behind her. Awareness dawned in his eyes. He looked so young—too young to be taking a chance with his life.
She hesitated, then sagged against her captor’s legs in a boneless faint. It would be impossible to imprison her with just one arm. The man cursed and stumbled back to free himself of her weight. With one fluid motion she rammed the full length of the syringe needle into the tender flesh at the back of his knee. He screamed and buckled to the floor, clawing at his leg. He threw the syringe across the room.
In a split second, the two deputies were on him. They jerked his hands behind his back and securely cuffed them. “Clark Porter, you’re under arrest, and the list of charges is getting longer every hour.”
They hauled him to his feet and started marching him toward the door. The older one looked over his shoulder toward Kate. “Can we get your statement down at the sheriff’s office?”
She sank into a nearby chair, her own knees weak as jelly. “You bet.”
“Thanks, Doc.” He grinned. “Just remind me to never come up behind you in a dark alley.”
CASEY ARRIVED JUST as the deputies were leaving. She stared at them, then spun toward Kate. “What happened?” Her face blanched. “What about Daddy? Is he okay?”
Kate debated about how much to say. “He’s stable. And this was the end of a lot of trouble, I hope. Porter is apparently the man who has been threatening your dad and me over some legal issues.”
“Oh, Mom.” Casey walked into Kate’s arms and rested her cheek against Kate’s shoulder. “You’ve been through so much. And I made everything worse, I know it.”
“Sweetheart.” Kate stepped back and held Casey’s shoulders. “You could never make anything worse. I’m so happy that you’re here.”
A sob shook the girl’s body. “I—I was sitting with him. He was unconscious, b-but I tried to tell him about...about something bad, and then the alarms went off and the nurses came, and he nearly died right there.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I know he must have heard me somehow, and the stress—”
“Casey. He’s stable now. He’s doing fine. It was just a coincidence,” Kate soothed. “If anything, your voice would’ve helped him get through that crisis. Believe me. You mean everything in the world to your father and me, and nothing you could ever do would change that fact. Understand? Nothing.”
Tears spilled down Casey’s cheeks, and she shook her head slowly, her eyes filling with despair.
Kate led her over to the chairs in the far corner of the room and sat next to her, still holding her hand. “Do you want to tell me?”
Casey bowed her head, her silky blond hair falling in a curtain that hid her face.
“If we just get this over with, you’re going to feel better. I promise.”
“B-but it’s Dad who’s important right now, not me.”
“Casey...” Kate gently lifted her daughter’s chin. “Look at me. If you’re in any kind of trouble, we’ll do whatever it takes to help you.”
“You and Dad both achieved so much in school. I knew I needed to do something really good with my life, too.” Casey swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to ever disappoint you. Especially since I got to live, and your only son didn’t.”
A chill swept through Kate at her precious daughter’s revelation. Had she felt guilty about being a survivor all this time? “We would have loved Collin with our whole hearts, just like we love you. But you had nothing to do with his death. It was a fluke. You don’t have to replace him or be anything different because he didn’t survive.”
More tears trailed down Casey’s cheeks. “I—I just can’t do it anymore.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I wanted to go to medical school s-so you’d be proud of me. But I study day and n-night, and I still don’t have a 4.0. And I—I just got my final grades back in chemistry and physics, and they weren’t anywhere close. But I’ll retake the classes, I promise. And I’ll do better.”
“Oh, honey. This isn’t a tragedy. We only encouraged you because that’s what you said you wanted.” Kate felt her own eyes burn at her daughter’s obvious pain and disappointment. “We want you to follow your heart, and do what makes you happiest. If med school isn’t what you want, we wouldn’t dream of encouraging you to try.”
“R-really?”
“And the next time your dad wakes up, I promise that he’ll say the exact same thing. Cross my heart.”
JARED AWOKE WHEN KATE returned from the sheriff’s office an hour later. “I hear there was some excitement up here,” he rasped.
She took the chair next to his bed. “A little more than I like, believe me. How’re you doing?”
“Not as groggy.” He nodded toward an IV stand that had been brought into the room while Kate was gone. “They’ve brought me a PCA pump so I can control the pain meds myself.”
She reached for his hand. “I’m just so thankful to see you awake. Sylvia and Casey will be back in a half hour or so—they’ve been worried, too.”
“Casey’s here? And my mother?”
“And your sister’s plane gets in late tomorrow morning, though she’s on standby hoping for an earlier flight. Believe me, you gave us quite a scare. Are you up to hearing about it?”
Jared nodded. “I don’t remember much from the last couple days. Just bits and pieces.”
“Do you remember Patty coming to the legal clinic?”
He frowned, thinking back. “She wanted a restraining order and a divorce.”
Kate nodded. “The sheriff has interrogated her husband. He found out that Clark had threatened to kill her, so apparently she came back to you yesterday, pleading for help to get to her sister’s place down in Madison.”
“I remember...” He rolled his head against the pillow in frustration. “I remember she’d been shot, but she refused to go to the sheriff or a hospital. Said she needed distance fast or she’d be dead for sure. She planned to contact the authorities in Madison.”
“Clark confessed to breaking into my clinic and making the threatening phone calls. He was furious when he found his wife was seeking legal advice from you, and he was on a quest for revenge. He also confessed to shooting Patty and to running your SUV off the road. He seems to have a pretty strong policy about not leaving any witnesses alive.”
“Careful guy.”
“Until he wiped and ditched his unregistered throw gun after he shot her. That was the weapon she grabbed and brought with her. Another mistake was letting me make a final phone call to the clinic. Amy caught on and alerted the sheriff’s department.”
“Smart girl.”
Kate could see he was wearing out fast. “I’d better let you rest.”
“I need...I need to tell you something.” He gritted his teeth and paled, then eyed the analgesia machine, letting the delivery push button drop out of his hand. “Things have been hard. My fault. I decided...you’re right. It’s not fair...to you. Not anymore. I’m closing the legal clinic.”
These were the words she’d longed to hear for the past six months, maybe longer. If the clinic closed, there’d finally be a chance for them to spend more time together. There’d be freedom from the fear that gripped her heart whenever he worked there late at night.
And yet, it was totally wrong.
“You’d do that for me?” She’d been in love with him almost since the day they’d met, but now she felt that love radiate through her with even greater power, warm and deep and steady. A bond that would last for an eternity and beyond. How could she ever have doubted him?
He held her gaze with his. “It’s the right thing to do. For us.”
She shook her head. “I can’t let you do it, unless it’s really, truly what you want,” she said quietly. “That place has been your heart and soul. It has meant more to you than anything else in your career, and I won’t ask you to be less than the man you are.”
“Come here.” He glanced at all the medical equipment surrounding the bed and the tangle of IV lines dangling in the way. “If I can’t hold you, I’m unhooking all of this and walking out of here so I can.”
The love and need burning in his eyes touched her the way no words ever could. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure there was no nurse in sight, she lowered the side rail and carefully negotiated her way past the IV lines and monitoring equipment until she could gently ease herself into his arms, for just a moment. The steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek and his firm embrace made her feel as if she’d just come home.
And just like that, they were twenty again—so innocent, so filled with the brash confidence of youth. So sure that nothing could ever go wrong when love was so absolutely right.
“We’ve had some hard times,” she murmured. “But I wouldn’t give up a minute with you to change any of it. It only made us stronger.”
“I love you, Kate,” he whispered against her hair. “More than you’ll ever know. And I pray that your last dance will always be mine.”
DEAR READER, THANK you so much for reading ONE MORE DANCE. If you enjoyed it and think some friends might like it also, please consider giving it a "star" rating or even a review. Thank you so much!
One More Dance is part of my five-book Northern Pines series, which will be releasing throughout 2021.
You can CLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter, through which you can win monthly prizes, find my family favorite recipes, learn about new releases, and have a little chat with me! At my website CLICK HERE you can also read my blog, or click on "Books" to find out more about the next book in this series.
Up next, another romantic suspense novel titled ONE MORE WISH, which is available for preorder at all major e-book retailers . Here is an excerpt:
“THE DOCTOR WILL BE here in just a moment, Mr. Rockwell,” the ER nurse murmured as she took his vitals.
Ethan winced and looked away when she lifted the edge of the blood-soaked bandage on his forearm.
Keifer’s voice filtered down the hallway from the receptionist’s desk, where the woman had promised to keep an eye on him. “Where’s my dad? I want to see my dad!”
An indistinct voice responded and his son quieted, but Ethan knew this ordeal had to be terrifying for him.
The boy’s mother had just dropped him off last night for the summer, and at this very moment she was flying out of the country. And then on his very first morning here, the poor kid had seen his dad nearly lose an arm in the power-take-off mechanism of a grain auger.
The stuff of nightmares, surely, and the irony was almost as painful as Ethan’s injury.
He’d wanted the next three months to be a wonderful adventure. He usually saw his son for just part of each summer, and on alternating holidays.
From the lobby area, Ethan heard kids arguing over something. He frowned, remembering the icy blonde who’d walked into the hospital just ahead of him with her three children.
She’d breezed through the lobby with an offhand, “Keep an eye on these three for a minute, Beth!” And then she’d disappeared down the hall.
Some people, like his ex-wife and that presumptuous blonde, certainly showed little interest in motherhood, far as he could tell.
A woman in a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped around her neck hurried into the room. “I’m Dr. Jill Edwards,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “I hear you had an argument with an auger.”
“It won. The painkiller is really starting to kick in, though.” Ethan rested his head against the paper-covered pillow on the gurney and regretted every moment of this day as Dr. Reynolds carefully unwrapped his haphazard bandaging.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “This is beyond the scope of a hospital this size, Mr. Rockwell.”
Startled, he looked up at her as she gently cleansed the edges of the wounds and then firmly wrapped the arm again with clean bandaging. She nodded to a nurse, who quickly shoved an IV stand next to the other side of the bed and opened a package of IV supplies.
He winced when she placed the IV needle in his arm. “It’s only a few lacerations, right? You can sew them up?”
Dr. Edwards shook her head. “It’s more involved than that. You’ve lost a lot of blood and you stand a good chance of losing function of your hand—or worse—if this isn’t done right. I’m referring you to an excellent surgeon in Green Bay.”
Ethan closed his eyes as the deadline he had to meet and the activities he’d planned for Keifer all went up in smoke
. “That isn’t necessary. Last year I needed thirty stitches when a bull took after me. Doc Olson stitched it up in his office and it healed good as new.”
“The tendons and nerves are involved, and the wound is badly contaminated.” The doctor nodded curtly to the nurse, who moved to an intercom on the wall and instructed someone to make arrangements for transport and admission to a hospital in Green Bay. “You need this taken care of as soon as possible.”
“I...can’t do it.”
"Mr. Rockwell."
“I have my son with me for the summer. I don’t have relatives here, and there’s no one else to take care of him.”
Removing her gloves, Dr. Reynolds murmured something to the nurse, then she turned back to him and lifted the rail on his gurney. “We’re going to find someone to help you out, so don’t worry.”
“If...if I do go, that would just be an outpatient deal, right? Back here today?”
“Maybe. But perhaps you could come here for follow-up care.”
"Follow-up?"
“For dressing changes, and if you need IV antibiotics..” She looked over her shoulder. “Ah, here you go. I need to check on someone else, but I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Someone slipped into the exam room just out of Ethan’s visual range and spoke quietly to the doctor, then moved to his bedside.
It was the blonde who’d, like the Queen of England, so casually dumped her kids on the overworked receptionist. “I’m Abby Cahill, the director of nursing. I understand there’s a problem?”
He was starting to feel woozy, now that the pain meds were hitting his system, but he wasn’t too out of it to catch her patronizing tone. “I just need to take care of this quickly and get home. In fact, I could probably just leave right now.” He winced as he started to sit up. She gently pushed him back down. “If I keep it bandaged—”
“Mr. Rockwell!” She blew out an exasperated sigh. “I really don’t believe you’re thinking clearly right now. Do you realize how serious this is?”
One More Dance Page 15