“I’m scared, Marcus. If she doesn’t make it this time, chances are she won’t make it at all.”
“She’s outrun all her other odds, Lis.”
Lisa twirled the phone cord around her finger. “I know, but it’s dangerous to take her on and off life support. It damages all kinds of things—the respiratory system, the brain, the heart. Deafness is already a concern, and mental retardation, too.”
“And we could be struck by lightning the next time it rains.”
“I’m serious, Marcus. You have no idea how many very real dangers she’s facing. I’m not overreacting here.”
“I’m serious, too, Lis. I’m fully aware of the dangers, but you’re worrying about things you can’t control. Save your energy for handling whatever comes.”
“But what’ll I do if—”
“You’ll do whatever you have to do, Lis,” he interrupted her. “You always have.”
She felt better after she hung up the phone, though she’d been disappointed to hear that Marcus wouldn’t be able to make it for her afternoon hour with Sara. He had a meeting with George Blake.
And by the time her second hour that day with Sara was ending, her panic was back. Determined to fight it, to take what control she had left to her, she walked down to the kidney ward, hoping to find Oliver still there. With the exception of her visits to Sara, she hadn’t been at the hospital on Friday afternoons in years, since that was one of the days she volunteered at the free clinic downtown, and she wasn’t even sure what her father’s hours were anymore.
She was disappointed to hear that she’d just missed him, not more than ten minutes before. Thinking he might stop to see Sara again on his way out, she rushed back upstairs, only to find she’d missed him there, too.
“Damn!” she said, punching the elevator for the bottom floor. She couldn’t go home. Hannah was still only working part-time, though she’d offered to come full-time after the baby was home, and Marcus wouldn’t be out of his meeting with Blake yet. She knew better than to go home and sit by herself. The empty rooms would only torment her.
Cool April air filled Lisa’s lungs and the sunshine warmed her face as she walked across the compound to Beth’s office. Just being out of the sterile antisepticfilled air that permeated the hospital corridors helped. Hopefully Beth was done for the day and could go out for a drink or something. She could use a dose of Beth’s cheer. She missed her friend. Missed being an everyday part of Beth’s life. Something she hoped would change after she brought Sara home.
If she brought Sara home.
Wherever home was going to be.
Her stomach started to churn again, and Lisa picked up her pace, determined to outdistance her demons. The door to Beth’s office was closed, but her light was on, which meant Beth was still working—but not with a patient. Beth never closed her office door with a patient inside.
Relieved far beyond what she should have been, Lisa knocked lightly once and opened the door.
She started to speak, words of greeting on her lips, but no sound came out. Beth wasn’t alone. And she wasn’t working.
Lisa closed the door before either person in Beth’s office even knew it had been opened, so involved were they in what they were doing. Cold all over, Lisa walked away as quickly as she could without attracting attention to herself. She felt like a fool. And alone. And heartsick. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen. She kept trying to convince herself that it wasn’t true, that it wasn’t what it seemed.
Except that there was no way it could have been anything else.
She tried not to think about it, tried to concentrate on finding her car in the parking lot, counting how many red cars there were in the row in which she was walking. Or blue ones. Or green. But all she could see, over and over again, was Beth, sitting on her desk, her blouse halfway undone, kissing a man.
A man Lisa had thought she knew very well.
Her father.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, Marcus Cartwright. If I’d ever had a son, I’d have wanted him to be just like you,” George Blake said, shaking Marcus’s hand as the two men left the conference room long after everyone else on Friday afternoon. They’d just finished going over the best quarterly reports Blake’s had ever known.
“I imagine I’d have grown up a little happier if I’d had you for a father,” Marcus said, uncharacteristically open with the older man. He’d had a soft spot for George Blake since the moment he’d met him.
George walked with him down to the elevator, as straightbacked as a much younger man. “Your father was a little rough on you, huh?” he asked.
Marcus shook his head. “He never lifted a hand to me. He just wasn’t ever there.”
George nodded. “He had a business to run.”
“Something like that.”
“Yeah, me, too. If I regret anything in my life, it’s not taking the time to watch my daughters grow. Girls are baffling little creatures, but they’ll leave a mark on you that you’ll cherish till the day you die.”
Marcus reached out and pushed the button for the elevator. “My wife just had a little girl a couple of months ago. Her name’s Sara.”
“Well, congratulations, boy! Why didn’t I hear anything about it? It wasn’t even in the paper, was it?”
“We’ve kept things quiet for Lisa’s sake. The baby was more than two months premature. It’s been touch and go. I’m on my way to Thornton Memorial to see her now.”
George’s brows drew together in a frown, and his eyes filled with compassion. “I’ll be praying for her, son. For all of you,” he said, clasping Marcus on the shoulder just as the elevator doors slid open.
“Thanks, George.”
“I’d like to keep in touch, Marcus, other than to discuss Blake’s, if you can find the time.”
Marcus didn’t hesitate. “I can find the time.”
George nodded again and Marcus watched the elevator close on his new friend. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so contented.
LISA HAD ONLY BEEN HOME a few minutes when Marcus called from his car to say he was on his way and asked that she put on a pair of jeans and a warm sweater. But he wouldn’t say where he was taking her. It had been so long since he’d planned one of the mysterious dates she’d always loved that she’d forgotten how magical they could be. It was just what she needed to take her mind off the rest of her life.
She was ready and waiting when he strode through the door and even had his jeans and pullover sweater laid out on the bed for him. She called the hospital with instructions to call her on her cellular if there was any change in Sara’s condition, while he got ready. She was looking forward to whatever diversion he had in mind.
When she climbed into the Ferrari beside Marcus, Lisa caught sight of a couple of bags from Berelli’s. Her favorite deli. Things were looking better every minute.
“So where we going on our picnic?” she asked, grinning at her husband.
He merely grinned back, put the Ferrari in gear and roared out of the drive. But Lisa knew where they were going almost immediately. She couldn’t have chosen better herself.
She followed him across the dock to Sara’s slip, then took his hand as he helped her aboard. It was a beautiful evening, not cold, though there was a nippy breeze blowing in from the ocean. The water was too rough to take the boat out, but Lisa wouldn’t have wanted to be away from shore and the hospital, anyway. She was content to sit with Marcus, enjoying the night, with the waves lapping at the boat, away from it all, and yet close enough to not be away at all.
“I went by Beth’s office on my way home this afternoon,” she said once they were sitting together on the deck, a blanket from down below wrapped around her. Marcus had a glass of wine for his predinner drink. He’d brought her a couple of nonalcoholic wine coolers in deference to her breast feeding.
“How’s she doing?” he asked, his arms crossed in front of him as he toyed casually with his wineglass.
“She was making love with my father,” Lisa blurted. She still couldn’t believe her father would get involved with a woman young enough to be his daughter. It upset her every time she thought about it.
A full minute had passed before she realized that Marcus wasn’t saying anything. He was looking out to sea, and Lisa could almost envision the wheels turning around in his head.
“Define making love,” he finally said:
“Her shirt was undone. He was…touching her. They were kissing.” It embarrassed her to talk about it.
She was shocked when Marcus turned to her and grinned. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
“You aren’t appalled?”
“I think it’ll take some getting used to for sure, but think about it, Lis. They’ve both already had, and lost, their mates. In spite of their age difference, they’re at about the same point in their lives, settled in their careers, their homes. They’re practically perfect for each other.”
“She’s young enough to be his daughter,” Lisa said. She kept picturing herself with Beth’s father, or Marcus’s had he still been alive, and she shuddered.
“Not technically,” Marcus said, reaching under the blanket for her hand. “She’s five years older than you, Lis.”
“There’s an entire generation between them.”
“But if it’s not a problem for them, why should it be for us?”
“He loves my mother,” Lisa said softly, and suddenly knew where her shame should be directed. Not at her father, but at herself. She was jealous.
“And Beth loved John every bit as much, honey. I suspect they both understand that. It’s probably why they were drawn to each other in the first place.”
Lisa sighed. “I’m being a jerk, aren’t I?” she asked, not at all proud of herself.
“Just being human, love,” Marcus said. He leaned over and kissed her.
“Well, it is going to take some getting used to,” she said when she could finally think coherently again.
Marcus nodded. “It all makes sense now, though.”
She frowned. “What makes sense?”
“A conversation I had with Oliver a while back. I thought he was talking about his career, but he must have already been seeing Beth. He was saying something about looking at the years still stretching out in front of him and wondering where to go from there. He asked if I thought he’d be acting like an old fool if he started over.”
Lisa’s eyes pooled with tears. Marcus’s words gave her a whole new insight into the man she’d taken for granted all her life. He was much more than just a father. He was a man with needs and desires, a man who still had a lifetime stretching out in front of him. A man who, despite his loss, was still capable of finding love with the right woman. It was time she recognized that. And loved all of him.
“So you think we should tell them we know?” she asked, suddenly just wanting to get it over with.
“They don’t know you saw them?”
Lisa shook her head.
“Then I think we ought to let it be until they come to us. It should be their call.”
“I just don’t want them to feel as if they have to hide from us,” Lisa said, understanding now the change in her friend over the past months, the times when Beth had avoided her. Although, when Lisa had needed a friend, Beth had still been that friend. Lisa was ready to return the favor.
THE HOSPITAL CALLED the next morning. They were removing Sara’s ventilator. Randal wanted Lisa present.
Marcus held, her hand all the way to the hospital and during the minutes standing next to Sara’s bed while the technician removed the tape that held Sara’s life support secure. As before, the baby protested the attention, but she didn’t seem, to Lisa to be putting up as much of a fight. Her little arms and legs weren’t squirming quite so energetically. Lisa broke out in a cold sweat while they stood there watching. And waiting.
Marcus stood silently beside her. Lisa wondered if he realized how crucial the next moments were. She wondered if he allowed himself to care at all. And suddenly she didn’t want him there. Not if he wasn’t there for Sara’s sake. She didn’t want anybody in the room who wasn’t pulling for her baby. Sara deserved a supportive family, not a disinterested bystander.
But before she could do more than release her grip on Marcus’s hand, the tube was gone. Sara blinked at the sudden need to pull in her own air. The room was silent. There were no little wails like the last time. Nothing to indicate that the baby was going to help herself.
Until suddenly Sara’s little features scrunched up into the ugliest face Lisa had ever seen, and she let out a wail that reverberated throughout the entire nursery.
“Thank God.” The words were Marcus’s.
LISA DIDN’T WANT to leave the nursery. She was afraid to go home, to let the baby out of her sight, in case something went wrong. Marcus agreed without any argument and sat with her in the nursery viewing room once their allotted hour with Sara was through. He left just before noon to pick up some lunch.
They’d barely finished the hamburgers he’d brought back when Oliver walked in the door to the viewing room, an apprehensive look on his face. Beth was right behind him. Her eyes darted to Lisa and then away. She looked like she was going to cry.
“Hey, you two,” Lisa said, “don’t look so glum.”
Beth did start to cry then. “I’m so sorry, Lisa,” she said. “I had no idea you’d come by.”
Oliver coughed and looked down. Lisa looked at her husband. “You called them.”
Marcus grinned sheepishly. “I called your father. Beth was there.”
“So what was all that about waiting for them to come to us?” she asked, standing up.
“I was wrong. The more I thought about it, the more I realized you were right. I didn’t want them hiding from us, either. Besides, I knew you were missing them. That you wanted them beside you today.”
Oliver crossed to Lisa, brushing a strand of hair back from her face as he’d done when she was a child. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll always love your mother, you know.”
Lisa threw her arms around her father, proud to be loved by him. “I know, Dad. And don’t ever be sorry about being happy.”
He crushed her to him, and for the first time Lisa was at peace with her mother’s passing and her father’s moving on. He’d had too much anguish in his life.
And so had Beth. Lisa reached out and hugged her friend as soon as her father let her go. “I love you, Beth. Be happy,” she whispered for Beth’s ears alone.
“I’ve missed you, friend,” Beth whispered back.
“So when are you going to make an honest woman out of her, Dad?” Lisa asked, one arm still around Beth.
Oliver laughed, a hearty outburst that Lisa hadn’t heard in years. She’d missed it. “I guess we have nothing to wait for anymore, do we, Beth? So what do you say? Are you going to marry me?”
“You mean you haven’t asked her?” Lisa gasped:
“He was waiting to talk to you first,” Beth said, smiling up at her lover.
Lisa hadn’t expected such consideration, but she appreciated it. She wasn’t losing a father or memories of her mother. She was gaining a new closer relationship with her best friend. It still felt a bit odd. And it would definitely take some getting used to. But she was happy for her father and Beth.
And then she saw Marcus, standing away from the three of them, gazing through the window into the nursery with a frown on his face. Her gaze flew to Sara. The baby was sleeping peacefully, her heart monitor beeping reassuringly. But Marcus’s frown remained. Was he, in the face of the love she shared with her father, reminding himself that he’d never have a daughter with whom to share a similar love? His face froze when he caught Lisa looking at him, and she knew she was right.
BETH AND OLIVER stayed for more than an hour, holding hands while they watched Sara breathe. Lisa saw the love brimming in their eyes as they watched her daughter, and she knew that whether or not Sara grew up in
her father’s house, the child was going to be surrounded by a family who adored her.
Marcus was silent most of the afternoon, frowning more often than not, but when Lisa tried to talk to him after Oliver and Beth left to go inspect the new dialysis equipment Cartwright Enterprises had purchased for the hospital, his replies were nothing more than one or two syllables.
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” she finally said. They’d been sitting there for more than four hours.
“I’ll stay,” was all he said.
Lisa didn’t speak again until she heard a commotion in the hallway outside the nursery viewing room. They’d been lucky to have the room to themselves so far, though she knew that the room was rarely used except by the families of preemies. The full-term babies could be seen better from the viewing window around the corner out in the hall.
“So where’s this kid I been hearing about?”
Lisa turned her head, recognizing the sassy voice instantly. “Willie Adams. What’re you doing up here?” she scolded. She’d dismissed the boy from the hospital a month ago, but he was supposed to be down in physical therapy every afternoon for several hours.
“Look at you, Willie!” Marcus said, turning to watch as the boy walked slowly into the room. His left leg was still dragging a bit, but Lisa could see that his motor coordination had much improved, even from the previous week.
“They say I gotta do stairs, and I figure the real kind are better than that stupid machine they want me to go on. At least this way I get somewhere.” His grin went straight to Lisa’s heart.
“Besides, I gotta see this kid. Which one is she?”
Marcus put his arm around the boy’s thin shoulders, pointing to Sara’s warming bed. “She’s right there. See, her name’s on that plate at the bottom of the crib.”
“What’s she in that funny-looking bed for?”
“It helps to maintain her body temperature.”
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