Diamond in the Rough

by Marie Ferrarella

  Now that she could handle. She felt the knot in her stomach loosen. Miranda picked up the container with both hands. “Oh, bless you.”

  Mike grinned. “One out of two isn’t bad. Fifty percent again,” he noted just loud enough for her to “overhear.” Gently, he guided her over to one of the sofas in the room, then tugged on her arm, getting her to sit down beside him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. Major computer glitch at the paper. Hard drive crashed big-time. I had to recreate my column from scratch in time for the next edition. So did a lot of other very unhappy writers.”

  She nodded her head in mute sympathy, even though her thoughts were elsewhere. She threaded her hand through his. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

  “So how’s he doing?” Mike knew it was a loaded question, that if her father had taken a turn for the worse, it would be painful for her to say anything at all. But to skirt around the situation would make it seem as if he didn’t care.

  Miranda blew out a ragged breath, as if that could somehow put a barrier between her and the oppressive fear she was feeling. The fear that was, even now, growing into almost unmanageable proportions.

  “I’m not sure,” she finally said. She dropped her arms to her sides. “It’s supposed to be a three-hour surgery. Four, tops.”

  He was aware of what time the surgery was scheduled to begin, but maybe they had gotten started late. “How long has it been now?”

  “Almost five.” Her voice cracked. The strain of the situation was getting to her, Mike noted. “I can’t get anyone to talk to me.”

  Nodding, Mike rose from the sofa. They’d talk to him, Mike thought. He’d always had a way of getting people to open up—and not resent him for it. “Wait right here.”

  But she caught his hand, fear momentarily getting the better of her. No news was good news—at least for now. “Just stay here and hold my hand.”

  The smile he gave her was filled with compassion. Sitting back down, he threaded his hand through hers and gave her a tiny squeeze. “I can do that.”

  Miranda willed herself to relax. It didn’t work. She leaned her head against his shoulder, drawing on his strength.

  “I’m really worried, Mike.”

  He slipped his other arm around her shoulders and softly kissed the top of her head. “It’ll be all right,” he promised her—praying that he wasn’t lying to her.

  She knew he couldn’t give her guarantees like that. She tried to cling to it anyway. “I don’t know about that,” she whispered. “It’s as if he thinks he’s not going to survive this one.”

  Mike sensed she wasn’t telling him everything. “Why, what makes you say that?”

  “He said he loved me.” Even as she told him, her eyes filled with tears. “He’s never said that before.”

  He thought of the loving home he’d come from and felt for her. Things would have been a lot different, he knew, if Kate hadn’t come along when she had. “Maybe he just realized that he should.”

  She shook her head. “No, I think the doctor told him something my father wouldn’t allow him to tell me. Dad’s very big on privacy.”

  He wouldn’t let her go there. There was no point in dwelling on the worst until it came into being. “Maybe this surgery is just making him realize he shouldn’t leave things unsaid, that’s all.”

  Her father wouldn’t have reached that conclusion on his own. It wasn’t in his nature. And then it hit her. “You said something to him, didn’t you?”

  Mike knew she wouldn’t believe him if he lied, but he wanted to minimize his role in this. “You mean, did I tell him to tell you that he loved you? No. But while he was going over what he wanted me to do as coach, he gave you a compliment. I just said that maybe he should tell you that instead of me. He said you knew and I told him it never hurt to make sure.” He smiled at her. “I guess he listened.”

  Miranda brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you.”

  He winked at her. “Anytime.”

  Impulse slipped over her. Or maybe it was the need to set things right once and for all. It took her less than a heartbeat to finally make up her mind. She talked quickly, before her courage flagged and sealed her lips.

  “How would you like to have the scoop of the decade?”

  He thought he knew where she was going with this—and for now, he was going to have to decline, even if she could have managed to pull it off.

  “You mean, an interview with your father? One of the last things he did was thank me for not asking him for one—he knows who I am.”

  Maybe her father had known that when he’d told her about Wes. Maybe that had been his covert way of saying he wanted to finally have the truth come out. “No, not an interview. My father isn’t guilty of the charges brought up against him.”

  What would it feel like, to have someone that loyal to him? Shaw didn’t realize how lucky he was. “Miranda, I know how you feel and you have changed my mind about your father. He’s changed my mind about him. I’m going to do what I can to have the commission overlook the offense and—”

  But she shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t mean he shouldn’t have that offense held against him, I’m saying he actually didn’t do it.” She saw sympathy come into Mike’s eyes. “I’m serious, Mike. I’ve got proof he wasn’t the one gambling.”

  He tried to make sense out of what she was telling him. More than anything, he wanted to believe her. Not because it involved Shaw, but because it involved her. Because it meant so much to her to clear her father’s name.

  “Are you telling me that someone framed your father?” he asked.

  “No, I’m telling you that my father took the fall willingly.”

  That didn’t make any sense to him. Who willingly set himself up for censure, to be banned from a game he loved more than anything in the world?

  “Why would he do that?”

  Miranda realized that she’d gotten up and was pacing. She had yet to stop being angry over this. She knew her father had been noble to do what he did, but all she could think of was what it had cost him. “To protect someone who meant a great deal to him. Someone he felt he owed his life to.”

  Mike eyed her incredulously as the words penetrated. “Wes Miller?”

  Miranda swung around to face him, surprised. “You know the story?”

  Mike nodded. “I did a lot of research on your father—especially when I started coming to the Little League games.” But all that was beside the point right now. Getting up, he crossed to her. “Are you telling me that Wes Miller was the one who was placing the bets on the games?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know this how?” he asked, already piecing a column together in his head. “Your father told you?”

  “Yes.”

  The word of the wronged man. It wouldn’t fly, he thought, frustrated. “It’s not that I don’t believe you—or your father. I do, but the press sees that as just hearsay.”

  She played her ace card. “I have a letter as proof.”

  The old cliché “Stop the presses” echoed in his brain. Mike grabbed both of her arms, bracketing her between his hands. “There’s a letter?”

  “From Wes to my father, dated shortly after the whole thing went down. Wes pledged his undying gratitude and loyalty for my father’s sacrifice—Wes’s words,” she emphasized.

  This was too good to be true. “You’ve seen it? You’ve seen the letter?” He tried not to sound eager, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “I have it,” she informed him. She expected Mike to all but do handstands over the information. Instead, he looked almost somber. Was she missing something? “What’s wrong?”

  He thought of the man currently in the operating room, possibly fighting for his life. He didn’t want to betray Shaw’s trust merely for a scoop. “Getting this letter out to the public, is this what your father wants?”

  The question took her aback for a second. Miranda’s smile was tinged in sadness.

&nb
sp; “Got to know him pretty well, didn’t you? No, it’s not what he wants,” she admitted. “But it’s what he deserves, what he’s earned. If that letter doesn’t come to light, he’s not going to get the proper recognition. The only footnote my father’ll ever get will be in the minus column.”

  He agreed with her. “And you want me to be the one to ‘break the story’?”

  “That’s the idea,” she confirmed. “That’s what you do for a living, isn’t it, write about what’s going on in the lives of sports figures?” She studied him for a moment. “You know, I thought you’d be a lot more excited about this.”

  “Oh, I’m excited, all right.” And it was a rush, being on the cusp of something so big. But there was the other side to consider. “But you also dropped one hell of a dilemma in my lap. I do this story, he gets his well-deserved recognition, but he cuts me dead for being the one to bring the story to the public’s attention.”

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess what was bothering Mike. “And you’d rather hang out with him than be hanged by him.”

  He nodded. “Something like that.”

  She tried to think of other options. “I suppose I could hold a press conference.” She hated the attention, but there didn’t seem to be another way.

  “I don’t want him turning on you.”

  That, to her, was already a given. “He’ll know I gave you the story.”

  “Not necessarily. He knows I’m seeing you. I could have rifled through some papers, come across the letter by accident—and run with it. I can always say that an anonymous source gave me the material. It’s possible if someone broke into his house—or yours.”

  But she heard only one thing. That he was willing to cover for her—with nothing in it for him. “You’d do that for me?”

  He inclined his head, tucking his arm around her and holding her close to him. “You’d be surprised what I’d do for you.”

  If the truth be known, Mike was rather surprised at the lengths he would go to in order to protect her and promote a better relationship between her and the father she adored. The father who adored her, as well, but hadn’t a clue how to show it.

  She smiled up at him. “I’m glad I know you, Mike Marlowe.”

  He grinned and winked. “Right back at you.” For more reasons than she could count, he thought.

  “So, you want the ‘scoop’?” she asked, having come full circle.

  He knew she was determined to clear her father’s name. Knew he could help her, though it would probably cost him. “Yes,” he told her, “I want the scoop.”

  “Okay, I’ll get you the letter. And I’ll tell my father that it was my idea.”

  “No,” Mike said firmly. “I’ll only run the story if you tell your father that I took the letter when you weren’t looking.”

  But she shook her head adamantly. “I won’t lie like that.”

  “Okay, say nothing.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll do the lying.”

  The debate was temporarily tabled because her father’s surgeon chose that moment to walk in. He was still wearing his surgical gown and his mask was hanging at half-mast around his neck.

  Miranda instantly stiffened like a lightning rod.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Darryl Reese was an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in matters concerning the spine. He was also a tall, somber man, given to pregnant pauses. The surgeon waited until both Miranda and Mike had crossed to him, giving him their undivided attention, before he began.

  “The operation was successful,” he told them. “We did what we set out to do both orthopedically and neurologically…”

  The pause was unnerving. If everything had gone according to plan, wouldn’t he have said so? Wouldn’t he be trying to manage some semblance of a smile? Miranda felt that giant knot tightening again in her stomach.

  Summoning her courage, she forced herself to ask, “But?”

  As she waited for a response, she clasped Mike’s hand, vaguely aware of the fact that hers had turned icy.

  “However,” Reese continued, measuring out each word as if to test its ability to stand alone, “your father has slipped into a coma.”

  Mike saw Miranda turn pale. “But this happens sometimes, doesn’t it?” he asked the surgeon. He was sure he’d read several accounts where the patient didn’t immediately regain consciousness. Sometimes, it even took more than twenty-four hours. “And the patient comes out of it in a matter of a few hours, right?” Mike prompted.

  “Yes,” the surgeon agreed. He glanced at Miranda, offering her a cupful of hope. “It’s the body’s way of shutting everything else down in order to concentrate on recuperating.”

  She wanted to be optimistic, but it was getting harder and harder to walk that narrow tightrope. “He’s never slipped into a coma before,” she told the doctor needlessly. Reese was the surgeon on record for all the other surgeries ever since the initial accident had brought her father to Blair Memorial.

  His expression softened slightly, as if he understood what she was going through. “Every operation is different.”

  “So he is going to come out of it,” Mike interjected, focusing on the positive for Miranda’s benefit.

  “The odds are—”

  Miranda shut her eyes. Every time someone resorted to talking about odds, she immediately knew that they wanted her to be prepared for the worst—just in case. She suddenly felt very drained. “My father’s never been very good at beating the odds, except on the playing field.”

  She was aware of Mike slipping his arm around her shoulders. Or had his arm been there all the time since the surgeon had entered the lounge? Again, she felt conflicted. She wanted to absorb Mike’s comfort, lean into his body. But her survival instinct warned her to be strong. Strength came only if she didn’t allow herself to be vulnerable.

  She drew away from Mike.

  For a moment, he let her withdraw. “Then think of this as a giant playing field,” Mike urged.

  She saw Dr. Reese nodding in agreement. He was feeling sorry for her. It was talk, all talk meant to comfort her for the moment. But the big picture was that each of her father’s operations had carried a risk factor. He’d made it through the other five, getting a little better each time. But maybe his luck had finally run dry.

  She felt sick. She wanted to run. She stood where she was.

  Crossing her arms in front of her, holding in the growing panic, she murmured, “Right.” And then asked, “Can I see him?”

  Reese nodded. “As soon as he’s out of recovery, I’ll have a nurse come and get you.”

  Miranda’s nerves mounted. She hadn’t had a good feeling about this surgery, especially since her father had postponed it twice. It was almost as if he’d known he wasn’t going to survive.

  Oh, God.

  She looked at Reese, silently demanding the truth no matter what it was. “He’s not going to die before he gets out of recovery, is he?” Her voice sounded oddly tinny to her ear as she asked the question.

  “No,” the surgeon replied firmly, “he’s not. The surgery was a success,” he reminded her.

  So then why is my father in a coma?

  She bit back the question. The surgeon seemed confident enough about this last prognosis, but it might have been solely for her benefit. No way could he actually give her a guarantee about her father’s condition and they both knew it.

  “He’s going to be all right, Miranda.”

  Miranda blinked and realized that she must have zoned out for a moment. The surgeon was gone from the room and the lounge was empty. She and Mike were the only ones in it. Mike was feeding her platitudes.

  She was panicky. And she wanted to be alone. As alone as she felt inside right now. She didn’t want Mike here. He just represented another heartache down the line and she’d already had too many. It was much easier for her to be by herself, taking care of her father.

  “You don’t know that,” she told him, her voice made hoarse by the trappe
d tears in her throat.

  “The surgeon said the operation was a success,” Mike reminded her.

  He didn’t get it, she thought angrily. “But my father’s in a coma. That’s not very successful, is it?”

  He took no offense at her anger, seeing only the hurt in her eyes. “He’ll come out of it.”

  Miranda almost broke. “Do you swear?” she cried, clutching at the front of his shirt. “Do you swear he’ll come out of it?”

  Because he knew she needed to hear it, despite how irrational it actually was for him to make the promise, he nodded. “I swear.” But when he tried to take her into his arms, Miranda surprised him by pushing him away.

  “You can’t swear,” she struggled to keep from shouting. “Because you don’t know he’ll come out of it. Nobody knows.” Tears began to fall. She wiped them away with the back of her hand but she wasn’t fast enough to stem their flow. Her emotions were barreling over peaks and valleys. “He really didn’t want this surgery, you know.” She’d been the one who’d had such high hopes for it, hopes that he would regain at least some feeling in his lower extremities. “Said it was just hacking away at a numb tree stump—”

  “When he first had his accident,” Mike interrupted, “the doctors said he’d be paralyzed from the neck on down. And with each surgery, he kept proving them wrong. With each surgery, a little more of him came back to life.”

  She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly in an effort to regain her control. “You do do your research, don’t you?” There was a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

  He tried not to let it bother him. Why wouldn’t she accept his help? Why wouldn’t she lean on him? “No,” he contradicted, “I knew that before I started my research. That’s just the fan in me.”

  “I thought you said that you were too disappointed in him to stay a fan.”

  “I lied,” he admitted. “Oh, I was disappointed in him, but as I got older, I realized that things weren’t just black and white and that adults can do bad things without being bad.”