Kneeling on the porch and muttering under his breath, Kurt appeared to be in a wrestling match with an ancient ice-cream maker.
Shoving it aside, he muttered, “Worthless!”
“It might make a big hit on Antiques Roadshow,” she suggested.
His head jerked up. When he saw her, a reluctant smile tilted his lips. “You might be right. This thing has been in the family since I was a kid.”
“It looks like it served you well.”
“Yeah.” He picked up the ice-cream maker and stood, his expression somber. “Nothing lasts forever.”
Her breath hitched. Was he talking about more than the ice-cream maker? Suddenly, he looked vulnerable. She wanted to hold him, feel his arms around her. But she couldn’t do that. She didn’t dare.
“Kurt, I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”
“Hey, no sweat.” He held up the ice-cream maker.
“I’ll order an electric one this time. It’ll do a better job and won’t be such hard work.”
He walked off the porch toward the barn and never looked back.
Sarah wasn’t that strong. No matter where she went or how long she lived, she’d always look back on this summer and remember how she’d fallen in love.
Preparations for the party kept everyone busy the following week.
Beth and Sarah worked on activities for the girls—Beth had invited a dozen of her friends—and they selected goodies for the treasure hunt in the barn.
Toby wanted to take his buddies out to the swimming hole, but Kurt convinced him that excursion would be better done some other day. So they decided on blindfolded calf roping, but not from a horse. The boys would keep their feet firmly on terra firma. Or so Sarah hoped.
When Toby wasn’t working with his dad, he rehearsed for Mervyn the Monster’s big performance with Sarah or up in his room.
Nana promised to do her part by providing two sheet cakes, one strawberry and one chocolate.
“I’d love to help out,” Grace had announced. “Zoe loved hosting parties. Usually for adults, though. Too many children made her nervous.”
In contrast, Sarah was looking forward to the party because so many youngsters planned to attend. As a child who was almost constantly in ill health, Sarah had been allowed to attend few parties. Come Saturday, she planned to make up for that.
On Friday, she volunteered at the hospital with Dr. Zoom. When she returned home, makeshift tables made of plywood resting on saw horses were arranged beneath the tree in the backyard. Paper table covers and matching plates were ready in the laundry room to be taken outside in the morning. Treasures had been hidden in the barn, little trinkets and candies that didn’t cost much but would be fun to discover. Kurt had brought two calves in from the north section to serve as subjects for the calf-roping contest.
The only possible hitch in their plans came from the weatherman. He predicted Saturday afternoon thunderstorms throughout the area.
“If that happens,” Kurt said, “we’ll move the boys into the barn and the girls can come inside. It’ll be fine.”
Excitement kept Sarah awake most of Friday night, and she woke feeling extra tired and a little achy. Ignoring the feeling, she dressed and prepared for the party.
A little after noon, carloads of youngsters began arriving. She wished she’d thought to get them all name tags so she could tell one child from another. She’d remember that next time, she thought before realizing there wasn’t likely to be a next time.
The end of summer was approaching all too swiftly. She’d be gone soon. Gone from the Rocking R. Gone from Kurt.
The thought brought an ache to her chest and sent a shudder down her spine. She’d miss Kurt and his children. More than she dared to admit even to herself.
Blinking away the sudden burn of tears, she went outside to greet the arriving guests.
One of the mothers approached her. “Hi, I’m Jayne Morgan, Billy’s mom. All these boys can be quite a handful. Would you like me to hang around and help out?”
“If you’d like to stay, I’d love to have you. The more helping hands the better.” Only half of the boys had arrived so far and it already looked like a gang of wild creatures had invaded the Rocking R Ranch. The girls were much more subdued, though their giggles were so high-pitched and shrill, it sounded like a flock of screaming eagles had joined the party.
She wondered if she’d been that silly as a preteen. She supposed she had wanted to be even if her mother hadn’t approved.
By one-thirty, Sarah had developed a headache and began to wonder if the party had been such a great idea after all. Not that the youngsters weren’t having a good time. They were. But she felt both drained of energy and flushed.
That wasn’t like her. She’d been extraordinarily healthy since her surgery. All those pills were doing their job.
So far, the weatherman’s clouds had remained at a distance. She hoped it stayed that way until after the party.
Nana, Beth and Jayne Morgan served the cake, and Kurt handled the ice cream while Sarah went inside to get Dr. Zoom. She and Toby planned to perform while the youngsters ate their dessert.
She picked up her tote bag, glanced in the mirror and frowned. Overnight she’d grown dark bags under her eyes. Her cheeks looked puffy. Lack of sleep, she told herself, and went back out to the party. She blamed nerves for the slight case of nausea unsettling her stomach.
Kurt had constructed a small, foot-high stage for them between the two makeshift tables and had placed two chairs in position.
“I’m kind of scared,” Toby said under his breath.
“You’ll be fine,” she told him, taking her seat. “Just remember to speak loudly enough so they can all hear you.” She winked and pulled Dr. Zoom out of her tote.
“Whoa! Vhat are all deez kids doing here?” Dr. Zoom asked, looking around.
Toby held up Mervyn and stuck him in Dr. Zoom’s face and growled in Mervyn’s voice. “They’re having a party, dummy. And they didn’t invite us.”
“Vhy would they invite you? Nobody vants a monster at their party.”
Slowly the youngsters began to realize something was happening. As Mervyn and Dr. Zoom carried on their nonsensical conversation, they began to listen.
“Hey, doc, knock-knock,” Mervyn began. “Who’s there?”
“I don’t know, monster. Who’s there?”
“Boy, you must be a real dummy. Anybody can see it’s me, Mervyn the Monster.”
Sarah twirled Dr. Zoom’s head around as though he was going to attack the monster. “Who you calling a dummy, huh? Look in the mirror, vhy don’t ya?”
As Dr. Zoom and the monster sparred, Sarah began to feel even worse than when she’d gone into the house. Maybe it was the heat added to her lack of sleep. The clouds were approaching, too. She could see streaks of lightning slicing through the black sky.
She shouldn’t feel this bad. Fatigued. Nauseous. Flushed. Those were symptoms the doctor had told her to watch for. Potentially fatal symptoms…
“You’re so smart, doc. Tell me what you get from a pampered cow?” the monster asked, followed by laughter from their audience.
Sarah had trouble concentrating. Her stomach roiled like the oncoming clouds and she felt breathless. “You get…” Her body starting shaking. “…spoiled milk.”
Like a window shade being pulled down, everything turned dark. She felt herself sliding off her chair in slow motion.
The next thing she knew she was on the ground looking up at Kurt as big, round drops of rain began to fall on her face. Toby stood behind his father, his concerned expression a twin to Kurt’s deeply furrowed forehead.
Why now, Lord? Why now?
Kurt touched her forehead. “You’re burning up with fever. You must be coming down with something.”
“No.” She licked her lips. Her throat was so dry, she barely had any moisture in her mouth at all. “My heart. My body’s rejecting my heart.”
Panic slammed int
o Kurt’s gut. She was rejecting Zoe’s heart? He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose Sarah, too.
“Dad!” Beth had raced to Sarah’s side the moment she’d collapsed. “What’s she saying?”
He forced himself to remain calm, act calm, in spite of the churning in his belly and his urge to scream out his anger. His anger at God. Why would a benevolent God allow this to happen again?
“It’ll be all right, honey,” he said to Beth. “I’m going to take her to the Shelby hospital. She’ll be all right,” he repeated like a mantra.
Sarah’s hand touched his cheek. “I’ll be fine. There’s a new cardiologist at…” Her hand fell to her side. “Tell him to call my Seattle doctor. His name’s…”
“I’ll find him, sweetheart.” He’d find her doctor if he had to call every cardiologist in Seattle. In the whole country, if that’s what it took.
Slipping his hands under Sarah’s slender body, he lifted her in his arms. “Grace, can you and Jayne take care of the kids? I’m taking Sarah to the hospital.”
Wide-eyed and red faced, Grace appeared on the verge of hysteria. “This can’t be happening. Not again. My poor baby.” Her voice rose to a screech.
Beth wrapped her arm around her grandmother. “Come on, Nana. Let’s go inside. I’ll make you some tea.” She met Kurt’s eyes, and he realized what a remarkable young lady she was becoming.
He nodded in approval.
Jayne Morgan stepped forward and shooed the children away from Kurt. “Okay, kids. No more gawking. Everything’s under control. Let’s get in out of the rain before you all get drenched. We’re going to play charades in the barn till your folks come to pick you up, and I think the girls will beat the boys.”
“No way!” the boys shouted, rising to the challenge.
Kurt wasn’t interested in who won the charade game. He knew he had to get Sarah to the hospital fast.
He lifted her into the truck cab and buckled her in. “Stay with me, sweetheart. Stay with me.”
Racing around to the driver’s side, he leaped into the truck, cranked over the engine and barreled down the driveway. A trail of dust rose behind him. Rain splattered on the windshield.
Once on the highway, he floor-boarded the gas. He hoped a cop would spot him and give him an escort to the hospital. But no such luck. What he got instead was a downpour that the wipers could barely handle and gusts of wind that threatened to push him into the ditch.
He felt the warmth of Sarah’s palm on his thigh. He risked a glance and saw that her fingernails were tinged in blue.
“Slow down, Kurt,” she whispered. “It won’t do anyone any good if we’re both killed in a crash.”
He eased his foot off the accelerator. She was right. But the terror of losing her was worse than the thought of dying himself. He hadn’t realized until now how much he loved her. His pride hadn’t allowed him to admit the depth of his feelings to himself, much less to Sarah.
And now, one way or another, he was going to lose her.
He started to pray. He’d prayed for Zoe’s life and God had failed him. He had to try again. Maybe this time…
The downpour had kept people inside waiting for the storm to pass and leaving the streets of Shelby empty of traffic. Kurt sped through a blinking red light and pulled into the hospital parking lot. He drove up to the Emergency entrance, hit his horn to alert the staff, and jumped down from the truck.
In a matter of seconds, a torrent of rain had drenched him.
A nurse in her mid-forties and a young orderly pushing a gurney met him at the passenger door. He yanked it open.
“What’s the patient’s name and problem?” the nurse asked, all business.
He unbuckled Sarah. “Sarah Barkley. She’s a heart-transplant recipient.” His breath came in anxious gulps as he lifted her from the truck and placed her on the gurney, trying to shield her from the rain. “She’s rejecting her heart.”
The nurse gaped at him, momentarily stunned.
Sarah struggled to speak. “Call Dr. Allan Jennings. Seattle.”
That broke through the nurse’s temporary paralysis. “Let’s get her into E.R., stat. Hook her up to oxygen.” She and the orderly wheeled Sarah into the hospital, Kurt following behind at a near run. “What meds is she on?” the nurse asked over her shoulder.
Kurt didn’t know and Sarah wasn’t able to answer.
“I’ll call home and get a list.” He pulled out his cell phone and speed dialed his house, praying that someone was inside to answer.
As the nurse passed the Emergency Room reception desk she told the clerk, “Get Dr. Trevor in here in a hurry. Tell him we’ve got an organ rejection for him.”
Listening to the ring of his home phone, Kurt tried to follow Sarah beyond the door to the Emergency Room but the clerk stopped him.
“I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to wait out here for now. They’ll let me know when they’re ready for you.”
Grace picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Grace, I’m at the hospital.” He kept his eye on the closed door as if he had X-ray vision and could see through the wood. See into that place where they’d taken Sarah.
“Is Sarah all right? We’re all worried sick about her. Beth and Toby, everyone.”
“I don’t know.” And he didn’t have time to chat. “I want you to go into Sarah’s room and find all of her medicine bottles. They want to know what meds she’s taking.”
He snatched a piece of paper from the clerk’s desk and a pen. Pacing, he waited for Grace to return. Water dripped from his hair onto the floor.
Outside, a flash of lightning lit up the sky. An instant later, a thunder clap shook the building and the overhead lights flickered. Kurt hoped to goodness the hospital had a backup generator.
“I’ve got the bottles,” Grace said in his ear. “I’m going to have to spell the names of the medicines. Most of them I couldn’t possibly pronounce.”
“Go ahead.” He printed the medications as she spelled them out. Words he’d never heard of. Meds that had kept Sarah alive. Until now.
When he’d finished the list, he handed it to the clerk. “The nurse wanted this in a hurry.”
She glanced at what he’d written. “I’ll get it to her right away.”
She vanished beyond the door into the Emergency Room. When she reappeared, she gave him what he took as an encouraging smile.
Then there was nothing left for him to do but wait.
Chapter Twelve
Time passed with the speed of a desert tortoise.
Kurt had moved his truck away from the emergency entrance, then hurried back to the hospital lobby. There’d been no need to rush.
He picked up a newspaper he found abandoned on one of several orange, molded plastic, miserably uncomfortable chairs. When he tried to read, his eyes blurred and he couldn’t decipher the words. He switched to staring at an overhead TV but the news didn’t hold his attention.
He kept having flashbacks to the hospital where Zoe had died. Shelby Community Hospital might be smaller than the one where he waited a year ago, but there were still patients’ loved ones who passed through the lobby with the look of strain and fear on their faces.
He imagined his grim expression was the same.
Every time the door opened to the Emergency Room, his heart lurched. But no one came to talk to him.
After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, a doctor who looked like he was right out of med school strolled out into the lobby. Blond, about six feet tall and slender, he wore a white jacket over a Broncos T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. A stethoscope hung half out of his jacket pocket.
“Mr. Ryder?” he asked.
Kurt jumped to his feet. “That’s me. How’s Sa rah?”
“Doing as well as can be expected.”
Kurt’s heart sank. That didn’t sound good.
The doctor extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Trevor. I’ll be treating Ms. Barkley while she’s here at the hospital.”
>
“I don’t mean to insult you, but how much experience do you have with heart-transplant patients?” He’d have a qualified doctor flown in to Shelby, or get a medevac plane to take Sarah to a major hospital, if that’s what it took to get her back on her feet again.
The doctor smiled. “No insult taken, Mr. Ryder. If you’re asking if I’m a heart surgeon, the answer is no. But I’m a board-certified cardiac specialist and I’ve talked to Dr. Jennings in Seattle, Ms. Barkley’s surgeon. Together I think we can manage her condition.”
“Just manage? Not fix?”
“She’s in very critical condition, Mr. Ryder. In order to prevent organ rejection, we have to suppress her immune system. That makes her vulnerable to infection. We’ll be running tests in the morning to see exactly what’s happening. Dr. Jennings and I are both hoping the rejection is reversible.”
“And if it’s not?” Fear clawed at his belly and he tried to tamp it down.
“Dr. Jennings tells me Ms. Barkley is a strong and very determined young woman. Let’s wait for the test results before we make any decisions about the next step.”
Kurt nodded, although he would have felt better if the doctor had told him Sarah was going to be fine. But a lie wouldn’t have done him or Sarah any good.
“I do feel it necessary that I warn you,” the doctor continued, “the outcome may not be as positive as we’d like. If her current heart continues to fail and her condition worsens, she may need a second transplant.”
Kurt’s knees nearly buckled.
“May I see her?” Grimacing, he rubbed the back of his neck as though he could erase the doctor’s words.
“Yes, briefly. I’ve moved her to the Intensive Care Unit. She’ll get the best care there. They allow family members a ten-minute visit every hour.”
Kurt didn’t correct the doctor. As far as Kurt was concerned, he was Sarah’s family. He was all Sarah had. He’d knock down a few doors if that was the only way he could see her.
The doctor directed him to the ICU, located on the second floor. He had to wait at a locked door until a nurse admitted him to the unit. The smell of medication and antiseptic mixed in the cool, dry air, forcing him to breathe through his mouth and fight off memories of Zoe’s last days.
Montana Hearts Page 13