His eyes slowly met hers again, and the sadness in them pulled at her heart. “No, I thought I was, but if I had been, if I’d truly been listening to God, I wouldn’t have let that night happen. I took something from you that I shouldn’t have—that wasn’t mine.”
So now he was going to try and be noble? Where had that nobility been for the last five and a half years? “You didn’t take it from me. I gave it to you. It takes two, remember?”
“Yes, but had I been the man of God I claimed to be, I wouldn’t have let you.”
“So, because of that, you thought it would just be better to leave? To never explain yourself? To leave me wondering?” She’d worked so hard to build up her emotional wall, to put him securely behind it at a distance where he could never hurt her again. Yet, sitting here with him, she could feel him chipping away at the wall, and she worked harder to keep it intact.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, a sharp scream followed by loud cries filled the air. Mia bolted toward the playground, screaming Carter’s name as she did.
Emmitt watched Mia run toward her son for just a moment before adrenaline kicked in and he followed. A young boy lay on the ground, tears streaming from his face, and his ankle twisted in a painful position.
“It’s okay, honey,” Mia said, though Emmitt could hear the fear in her voice.
“It hurts Mommy.”
“May I?” Emmitt stepped forward and before Mia could object, he lifted the small child in his arms. He looked down at the boy’s face and was surprised to see not the blue of Mia’s eyes, but dark brown like his. The boy had the same shape to his face as Mia did, and his nose appeared similar, but that’s where it ended. The rest of the boy’s face must be his father’s. Emmitt forced his face to remain stoic as thoughts of a child with Mia surfaced in his mind.
“What are you doing?” Mia asked, following behind him.
“Taking him to the hospital. My car is parked right over there. Did you drive?”
“No, but…”
He could see the hesitation in her face, hear it in her voice. She didn’t trust him, which made sense after how he had hurt her, but he was not going to just let this kid keep crying in pain. “Look, I get it. You don’t trust me anymore, but I’m here, I have a car, and I can get him there faster than an ambulance could get here. Cheaper too.” It was a cheap shot, and he knew it. He could tell money was on her mind more often than it should be, but it worked. Her mouth folded into a tight line, and she nodded.
When they got to his car, he debated his next course of action. His keys were in his pocket but he would need to set the boy down to get them.
“Where are your keys?” she asked, as if reading his mind.
“In my right front pocket.” He indicated with his head and watched as indecision crossed her face. “I can put him down.”
“No, I want to move him as little as possible. I’ll get them.” She took a step closer and then reached into his pocket. Her eyes caught his and a pink flush crawled up her neck. So, he could still affect her. He found that thought satisfying as she certainly still affected him. “Got them,” she said and broke their gaze. She unlocked the door and opened it, and Emmitt leaned down and loaded the kid as gently into the backseat as he could.
He moved to shut the door, but she stepped forward. “I’ll sit in the back with him.”
With a nod, he moved to the driver’s side, fired up the car, and pulled out as soon as she was situated.
Chapter 5
Mia chewed on her thumbnail as she paced the hospital restlessly. They had taken Carter for x-rays, but that was nearly an hour ago. Why wasn’t he back yet?
“Can I get you anything? A coffee? Food?”
She looked over at Emmitt, who was still waiting with her. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t left, but for the moment she was grateful for the company. “No, my stomach is too knotted for anything. What’s taking them so long?”
Emmitt shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll go ask at the desk.”
As he sauntered toward the nurse’s station, she resumed her pacing. Suddenly, the doctor who had whisked her son away appeared in the hallway. His grim expression turned her heart to ice. Was it worse than a break?
“Mrs. Conrad, I have some news. Would you like to wait for your husband to return first?” He nodded toward Emmitt who was returning their direction.
“No, he’s not my husband. Just a…a friend.” Actually, she didn’t know what Emmitt was at the moment, but having driven her here, she supposed he counted as a friend for now.
“All right. Well, Carter did sustain a fracture of his ankle. We got the bone set and the cast on. He’ll be groggy for a few hours, but you should be able to take him home tomorrow.”
Relief flooded Mia and her shoulders relaxed. “Thank you,” she said and then his words registered. “Tomorrow? Is that normal for a break?”
The doctor’s lips pursed, and his gaze shifted to the floor before returning to her eyes. “No, it isn’t. Unfortunately, we did find something troubling on the x-ray.”
“What?” Mia felt as if someone had punched her gut. All the air flew out of her lungs. Her knees buckled and she grabbed for the wall to keep herself from falling.
“There are some markers that indicate osteosarcoma. We’d like to run further tests.”
“What is osteosarcoma?” Emmitt asked, coming up beside her. He placed a hand on her shoulder, offering strength. Only a hand, but it was something.
The doctor looked to Mia for consent before answering the question. She hesitated only a moment. If it was something serious, she would have to tell him eventually. “It’s fine. He can hear. What is osteosarcoma?”
“It’s a cancer of the bone. Has Carter ever complained of his legs hurting before?”
It was Mia’s worst nightmare come true, and a weight pressed on her chest, causing her voice to come out small and weak. “Yes, but I thought it was just growing pains.” She covered her mouth with her hand. She was an awful mother.
The doctor nodded. “Yes, that’s common with this cancer. This type of cancer is usually only found when someone comes in for another type of treatment like Carter’s break, and it’s rather rare for someone so young, so it’s possible it’s something else entirely. However, we’d like to be sure, so we’ll do a biopsy to determine if it’s cancer, and if it is, we’ll run an MRI to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread. Once we know what we’re dealing with, we can determine treatment options.”
Mia wrung her hands together. Cancer. Was this her fault? Had she passed this to him? Had his father? “Is there something I could have done? If I brought him in sooner?”
“Not necessarily. We won’t know exactly what we’re dealing with until we run the tests.”
Mia nodded, but it didn’t ease the guilt that covered her like a second skin. Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she spoke again. “Of course I’ll do whatever it takes, but that sounds expensive.” The words came out slowly and she hated that instead of just focusing on her son, she was having to think about how she would pay for tests and treatment.
The doctor’s face folded in sympathy. “It can get expensive. Do you have insurance?”
Mia shook her head and tried not to feel like a total failure. “My husband died last year, and I’ve been working at a restaurant. They don’t offer insurance.”
Pity—that dreaded expression that Mia hated—crossed the doctor’s face. “We can work out a payment plan, but we can’t move forward until we know what’s going on, so not performing the biopsy really isn’t an option.”
“Of course, I’ll figure something out.” She didn’t know what, as she had no money. Even a payment plan wouldn’t help unless they would take twenty dollars a month. She could move out of the apartment, but then where would they live? Back with her parents was possibly an option. One she hated, but what choice did she have? “Can I see Carter?”
“Sure, I’ll take you back.” The doctor paused and
shifted his gaze to Emmitt as if asking silently if he was coming too.
“Go ahead,” Emmitt said. “I’ll wait for you here and drive you home when you’re done.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Mia said. She didn’t really want him to stay, but she couldn’t just tell him to leave. Not after he’d driven them here and offered to wait around and drive her back. Whatever he had done in the past, he was offering to be her rock right now. And she needed a rock. She hated that she did, but she did.
“I have nothing else to do, remember? I only came here to see you. You go be with your son for as long as you need. I’ll be here when you need me.”
Mia smiled gratefully and then sighed. Work. She still had to go to work today, but how could she go? Carter needed to stay overnight, and he was too young to stay in the hospital by himself. But, if she didn’t go, she would no doubt be fired, and Heaven knew she couldn’t afford to take the day off. Especially now. She’d been late too often recently, and her boss would likely not see this as a viable excuse. She’d have to call her mother and see if she could come up to sit with him while she was at work. “Thank you. I won’t be long. Unfortunately, I have to be at work in a few hours.”
Emmitt watched Mia walk down the hallway and disappear into a room before he returned to the nurses’ station. There was no way he was going to let the hospital bills drain Mia financially. The pain and uncertainty had been written all over her face, and her admission that she had no insurance only drove the knife in deeper. If Emmitt had taken Mia with him, if he had married her, she would have insurance.
“Excuse me,” he said to the woman at the station, “who do I talk to about paying someone’s medical costs?”
The woman smiled at him, but questions swam in her eyes. “I’m sorry? You want to do what?”
“I want to pay for Carter…” He trailed off. He didn’t even know Mia’s last name. “That woman I was with. Her name is Mia. Her son is young, four or five. He broke his ankle, and I want to pay for his treatment. All of it. His mother doesn’t have insurance. Nor does she have the means to pay his bills. I do. So, how do I set that up?”
The woman blinked at him, seemingly incapable of speaking for a minute. “Um, I’ll send you to billing. I think they can help you with that, but you’ll need his last name.”
“Can you help me with that? Please? I don’t want to bother his mother while she sits with him, and I’d really like to get this taken care of before she finds out.”
The woman bit her lip. “I’m not supposed to.”
He was going to have to try a different tactic. He leaned forward and stared directly into her eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Betty,” she said.
“Well, Betty, do you like football?”
A small smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “This is Texas, sir, it’s pretty hard not to like football.”
He returned the smile, flashing the most charming one he could. “Okay, well, I play for the San Antonio Rebels. I’ll send tickets for you and your family back here if you’ll help me out.”
Her eyes widened as recognition dawned on her face. “You’re Emmitt Brown?”
“Yes, I am, and I could use a favor.”
She nodded, still apparently awestruck, but her eyes glanced down to the computer screen and her fingers tapped the buttons. “Conrad. His name is Carter Conrad.”
“Thank you, Betty.” He tapped the counter and then followed her directions down the hall to the billing department where he received the same shocked expression from the woman there.
“Why would you want to pay someone’s medical bills?” the woman asked as she pushed dark-rimmed glasses up her nose.
“Because she can’t. Because he’s a kid.” Because it’s my fault, he added silently, but this woman didn’t need to know that.
“Okay, well, we certainly don’t get requests like this every day, but yes, it’s possible. I’ll have all bills go to your address. I just need you to fill out this form.” She slid a paper across the counter to him and Emmitt began filling it out.
“Can you do one more thing?” he asked when he was finished. “Can you make it anonymous?”
“You don’t want her to know?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell her when it’s time.”
The woman blinked at him. Clearly this was not normal behavior. “Okay, I’ll notate the account.”
With that done, Emmitt returned to the waiting area and sat down in one of the chairs. He closed his eyes and placed his chin on his clasped hands. Lord, I know that doesn’t make up for what I’ve done, but please… If it’s Your will, save this boy.
Chapter 6
Mia tried to keep her emotions in check as she entered Carter’s room. How could she leave him here to go to work? He looked even smaller than his almost five years in the large bed, especially with the cast dwarfing his ankle. “Hey bud, how are you feeling?”
“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “It doesn’t hurt so bad anymore and they have TV. Can I stay here for a little bit?”
Mia bit back the tears that threatened to overflow. She should be here with her child all day, but there was little money as it was. That detail was punctuated by the fact that he wanted to stay in a hospital for the TV. What kid wanted to stay in a hospital? Hers, it appeared. Cable had been one of the first things she had dropped after Marcus’s death. She had no time to watch it, and the hundred dollars a month was definitely spent better elsewhere. Unfortunately, that meant Carter was reduced to the few DVDs they had purchased over the years if he wanted to watch TV, and Mia knew he was tired of watching the same movies over and over again. Not even the local channels came through their older model television. “Yeah bud. You actually get to spend the night. They want to run some tests on your leg.”
“Does that mean I won’t have to go to Grandma’s?”
“It does, but I still have to go to work, so Grandma will come here. At least until I get off. Then I can come stay with you.”
Carter’s face scrunched for a moment as if considering this option. “Okay, I think that will be fine. I’m sure I can find some cartoons until Grandma gets here.”
Oh, to be a child again and simply worry about cartoons instead of payment plans and treatment options. “That’s good, buddy,” Mia said as she brushed his bangs back on his forehead. If only it were that simple. She tried not to worry about the future as she looked at him, but it was impossible. How was she ever going to get the money to pay for this stay? Let alone any future tests and treatments he might require? She swallowed the lump forming in her throat and tried to keep her voice even. “I’m going to call Grandma and then I have to get to work, bud, but I’ll see you as soon as I get off.”
“Okay, bye Mom.”
She kissed his forehead and tried to not think about how many more times she would get to do this. What if the cancer was bad? What if he never made it out of this hospital? No, she couldn’t think like that. She’d already lost Marcus. She couldn’t lose Carter too. That would be too cruel.
As she started back toward the waiting area, the tears built up behind her eyes, blurring her vision, and she sank to the floor. They spilled, one by one, like droplets from a leaky sink down her cheeks, and she pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. How could this be happening?
“Are you okay?”
Mia looked up to see Emmitt standing over her, concern etched in his handsome features. As he looked down at her, the dam broke. She didn’t want his pity, and she lashed out at him.
“No, I’m not okay. My son might have cancer, I have no money to pay for his treatment, and I have to get to work and leave him in the hospital alone. I feel like the worst mother in the world, and you showing up unannounced isn’t helping.” Her hand flew to her mouth as his face fell. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I know you’re just trying to help.”
He held out a hand and helped her stand. “It’s okay. That’s a lot for anyone to deal with, but I’d like
to help. Please, tell me what I can do.”
Mia blew out a breath that landed somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh and ran her hand through her hair. “Can you cure cancer? Buy me a winning lottery ticket to afford the treatments?” She shook her head and sighed. “I’m sorry, you don’t need to be dragged into this. If you can just take me home, you can get back to your life. I’ll figure something out.”
“How about this? I take you home and then I come back here and hang out with Carter?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll call my mother. She usually watches him during the day, so I’m sure she can come in and sit with him.”
“Fine, then at least let me buy you dinner tonight.”
She started to shake her head again, but he cut her off. “You have to eat, and I’m sure whatever I bring will taste better than hospital food.”
“I can just bring something from Manny’s,” she said. While having company sounded appealing, it was Emmitt. Emmitt, who had always sent her heart fluttering and held a power over her. Emmitt, who had left her with a broken heart. The last thing she needed was to be around Emmitt, especially when she was vulnerable like this.
“I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ve haven’t been the best friend, but friends help each other out.”
At the mention of the word friend, she folded. They weren’t friends now, but they had been once and though she didn’t like asking for help, she didn’t have a ton of close friends who could take the time off to sit with her like he could. “Fine, thank you, but I don’t get off till nine.”
“You’re welcome, and that’s fine. Now, let’s get you home before you’re late for another shift.”
Emmitt stared at the open Bible in front of him. He had returned to the hotel room hoping to do his devotional after dropping Mia off at her house, but all he could think about was Carter. Nobody should get cancer, least of all a child with his whole future ahead of him, but Emmitt knew it happened all the time. It had just never happened to someone he knew, and though he didn’t have children himself, he couldn’t even imagine how Mia must be feeling. He had lifted the financial burden from her shoulders, but he wanted to do more. He just wasn’t sure what.
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